re3 is pleased to announce that glass bottle and jar recycling is changing from separated to mixed glass recycling. This means that all re3 glass banks in Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham Boroughs are now accepting all coloured glass bottles and jars, making recycling much easier for the public. This new system also allows re3 to rationalise containers and optimise collection schedules, which can help to reduce costs, overflows and its carbon footprint.
Glass bottles and jars that are placed in the banks are sent to the state-of-the-art glass recycling facility operated by the UK’s leading glass recycler URM. Thanks to their investment in the latest colour sorting technology, the plant accepts mixed clear & coloured glass bottles and jars for processing and sorts the mixed glass into individual colours. The recycled glass material is then transformed into a high-quality finished product for the food, beverage and pharmaceuticals industries, achieving the same results as when supplied with pre-sorted colour glass material.
In a joint statement, Cllr Mrs Dorothy Hayes MBE, Bracknell Forest Council’s Executive Member for Environment and Chairman of the Joint Waste Disposal Board, Cllr Adele Barnett-Ward, Reading Borough Council’s Lead Councillor for Neighbourhoods & Communities and Cllr Parry Batth, Wokingham Borough Council’s Executive Member for Environment and Leisure, said: “Glass can be endlessly recycled without any loss of quality and the most popular approach is to remelt it to produce more bottles and jars – the true meaning of closed-loop recycling. We are fortunate to be able to send glass bottles and jars to this impressive facility, which uses advanced equipment and technology, so there is no need for the public to colour segregate their glass anymore. Mixed glass recycling is going to be of great benefit to the public and re3 Councils. It makes recycling glass much quicker and easier and it should improve the efficiency of collecting the material, meaning we will no longer see one bank full to overflowing and another next to it partly empty. We also hope to see a reduction in the public leaving their glass on the floor next to the glass banks due to one particular colour bank being full.”
The new system of mixed glass recycling is available to use now. re3 residents are encouraged to use all the glass banks at the Recycling Points for all colours of bottles and jars. Stickers informing about the mixed glass collection will be gradually added to the bank collars at each sites. The public are also reminded that the glass banks are for bottles and jars only: Pyrex, window glass, sheet glass etc are not accepted at the glass banks.
Last year, re3 we collected over 10,000 tonnes of glass from over 550 re3 recycling glass banks across re3, almost 40% more than in a previous year. All this material was successfully recycled, bringing a benefit to the environment as every 1,000 tonnes of recycled glass saves 345,000 kWh of energy, 314 tonnes of CO2, 1,200 tonnes of raw material and 1,000 tonnes of landfill.
Further information on glass recycling, including translated versions into Arabic, Mandarin, Nepali, Polish, Romanian and Urdu can be found on: glass-recycling
