glass guide uk[1]

7/31/2019 Glass Guide Uk[1]

1/75

UK GLASS MANUFACTURE

A MASS BALANCE STUDY


2/75

Biffa programme on sustainableresource use

2

Objectives

This report forms part of the Biffaward Programme on Sustainable Resource Use. The aim of

this programme is to provide accessible, well-researched information about the flows of

different resources through the UK economy based either singly, or on a combination of

regions, material streams or industry sectors.

Background

Information about material resource flows through the UK economy is of fundamental

importance to the cost -effective management of resource flows, especially at the stage when

the resources become 'waste'.

In order to maximise the Programmes full potential, data will be generated and classified in

ways that are both consistent with each other, and with the methodologies of the other

generators of resource flow/ waste management data.

In addition to the projects having their own means of dissemination to their own

constituencies, their data and information will be gathered together in a common format to

facilitate policy making at corporate, regional and national levels.


3/75

Contents

Executive summary 5

1. Introduction

1.1 Glass a sustainable material. 71.2 Objectives of the Report 71.3 Scope of the Report 8

2. An Overview of Glass and Glassmaking

2.1 History of Glass 92.2 Common Types of Glass 102.3 The Glass Making Process 13

2.3.1 Batch Preparation 132.3.2 Glass Melting 152.3.3 Glass Forming 162.3.4 Annealing 172.3.5 Inspection 172.3.6 Packing and Dispatch 17

3. Industrial Glass Manufacture

3.1 An Overview 183.2 The Container Glass Sector 193.3 The Flat Glass Sector 203.4 The Fibre Glass Sector 213.5 The Domestic Glass Sector 213.6 The Special Glass Sector 223.7 The Availability of Import and Export Data 22

4. The Glass Recycling Industry

4.1 Glass Recycling in the UK 244.2 The Recycling Industry 254.3 The Glass Reprocessors 264.4 The Bottlebank System 274.5 The Packaging Waste Act and Compliance Schemes 284.6 Local Authorities 29

3


4/75


5/75

Environmental issues resulting from

governmental initiatives or customer

concerns are increasingly influencing

the activities of major manufacturing

industries.

The objective of this report is to provide

the reader with accurate data upon

which sound policy decisions relating to

the glass manufacturing industry can bebased.

The glass industry produces a unique

product that has the great advantage of

being completely recyclable. Why then

will over 70% of the 3.6 million tonnes

of this material flowing through the UK

economy find its way to the landfill site?

In 2001 the UK glass industry produced

an estimated 2.8 million tonnes of

glass. Whilst glass has many uses in

practice food packaging and glazing

applications account for around 90% of

all the glass manufactured in the UK.

The UK is a net importer of glass mainly

in the form of containers for food and

drink. These imports increase the total

mass flow of glass through the UK

economy to some 3.6 million tonnes per

year.

The majority of this glass could be

reused, recycled or put to an alternative

use. The report reveals that the amount

of glass being reused, typically

returning a bottle to be refilled is almost

negligible.

The return of the glass to the melting

furnace is the option favoured by the

glass container industry but concerns

over contamination limit returns to

other sub-sectors. Approximately

740,000 tonnes of glass was remelted in

2001 reducing the industries use of

virgin raw materials by over 900,000

tonnes. The majority of the glass

destined for return to the furnaces is

collected by the established bottle bank

system.

Increasingly recovered glass is findingits way into alternative uses. Glass

finds many diverse uses ranging from

coloured gravel in fish tanks to filter

mediums to dissuading worms from

emerging onto the golfers putting

greens. However the great majority of

the glass reused in non-melting

applications is pressed into the more

mundane use of substitute aggregates.

Typically this glass will have been

collected directly from commercial

outlets.

Despite all the potential options to

reuse, recover, send to alternative uses

the simple fact remains that over 2.5

million tonnes of valuable material was

discarded to landfill in 2001.

The glass industry has always been

subject to some form of regulatory

control. Until recently regulations were

designed to cover the activities that

occurred within the factory, safety,

airborne emissions etc. The thrust of

much of the new regulations concerns

the impact that products have in the

wider environment and the industry

must now consider such issues as

sustainability and producer

responsibility.

Executive Summary

5


6/75

Governmental polices in the form of the

packaging regulations; aggregates tax

and recovery targets for local authorities

are beginning to have a marked

influence on the recycling activities. The

widespread adoption of kerbside

collection schemes will improve the

recycling rate for glass although much

seems destined for the one time use of

the aggregates market.

Of concern to all interested parties is

provision of reliable data. Governmental

regulations based on recovery targets

are now the principal drivers being

employed in an attempt to achieve a

more sustainable lifestyle. Realistic

targets can only flow from the correct

interpretation of good data. At a lower

level those obligated to recycle need

accurate data to determine their

obligations and later to demonstrate

their compliance. A major conclusion of

the report is that the data collection

systems currently in place are

inadequate for these purposes. The

requirement for material specific data

will soon be extended beyond the

container sub-sector as legislation

focused upon producer responsibility is

enacted. Consequently benefits would

accrue if the data collection process

were undertaken by a single

organisation. The most obvious choice

for this task would be the relevant trade

associations, who could bring material

specific expertise to bear and whose usewould largely overcome any concerns

relating to confidentiality.

Finally, the report recommends some

simple actions to increase the volume of

glass recovered from the domestic

waste stream. Increasing UK bottle

bank density to match that of our

European neighbours would

significantly increase the glass take.

A disappointingly large proportion of

newly launched kerbside collection

schemes is not targeting glass. The

glass industry should address this

problem by funding a study into the

economic and other benefits of glass

collection within a kerbside scheme.

6


7/75

The glass industry is justifiably proud of

its products. Glass is a unique material

having a myriad of uses but finding

particularly useful applications in the

food packaging and glazing industries.

One of the many virtues of glass, often

repeated by industry managers, is thatthe material is infinitely recyclable.

Sadly, whilst this may be true in theory,

in practice the level of glass recycling

achieved in the UK falls well short of this

potential.

Domestic UK glass production from all

sources is estimated at 2.8 million

tonnes, container and flat glass

accounting for approximately 90% of

this total. The UK is a net importer of

glass principally in the form of wine

bottles, flat glass, televisions, computer

monitors and motor vehicles. Accurate

data on imports and exports of glass do

not exist as most of the material is in

the form of packaging. Based on

information provided fro m a variety of

sources it is estimated that the net

inflow of glass into the UK is some 0.78

million tonnes per year. Total glass flow

within the economy is thus estimated at

some 3.6 million tonnes.

A newly produced glass item entering

the system initially adds to the existing

stock. As glass is not a degradable

material it remains essentially

unchanged after its intended use. At this

point several options are available for

the end-of-life glass including: reuse in

its existing form, recycling to the glass

melters, alternative uses or discard to

the waste stream. Unfortunately current

UK practices still appear to favour the

waste option.

In common with its EU partners the UK

is committed to policies which promote

sustainable development. The UK

government has opted for a range of

measures to promote this outcome,

including obligating legislation, tradable

permits and state aid.

Whilst not the principal culprit in theapparent inexorable rise of waste, glass

still makes an unnecessarily large

contribution to the total. It is hoped that

this glass-specific mass balance study

will itself play some small part in

promoting the ideal of sustainable

development.

The aim of this report is to provide

reliable information on the UK glass

industry with respect to volumes of

production, use of primary raw materials

including energy and the ultimate fate

of end-of-life glass. The report also

gives an overview of relevant legislation

and some insight into the practical

difficulties encountered by the industry

in its attempts to improve itsenvironmental credentials.

It is hoped that this information will

assist the glass industry, government,

regulators and other policy makers in

their deliberations on the issue of

sustainable development and the role of

glass.

Whilst this glass study constitutes a

stand alone analysis of a specificmaterial it also forms part of a much

1 Introduction

1.1 Glass a sustainablematerial.

1.2 Objectives of the Report

Glass is made primarily ofsand and is infinitelyrecyclable.

7 Chapter 1: Introduction


8/75

Natural gas is the mainsource of energy usedin the Glass Industry

8 Chapter 1: Introduction

larger study whose aim is to quantify all

the major material flows through the UK

economy. As such the methodology

employed [mass balance] is consistent

with the other studies thereby

facilitating the eventual consolidation of

individual reports into a meaningful

overarching study.

This study considers the mass flow and

associated issues as they affect the

industrial production of glass. The

boundary to the study encompasses all

large-scale domestic manufacture

including the imports and exports of

glass products, including wherever

possible those items having a significant

glass content e.g. motor vehicles and

computer monitors. Raw material use

including energy has been included for

domestic production but the boundary

falls short of considering the energy

associated with the production of these

raw materials. The boundary extends

through the production facilities to the

end-users. The issue of recycling and/or

reuse is considered in detail. Finally the

boundary extends to the waste stream

and an attempt is made to reconcile the

studys predicted arisings of glass waste

with the data reported in various waste

analysis surveys.

The report also gives an overview of theUK glass industry, its size and its

diversity. Environmentally driven

legislation has an ever-growing

influence on the industry, particularly

the packaging sector. The effect of

these drivers on the present and future

direction of the industry is covered in

some detail.

Finally, the study makes

recommendations which it is hoped will

receive some consideration from the

policy makers for whom this work is

principally intended.

In addition to the preparation of this

report the project was tasked with

production of some educational

material. The final product is a short

video. The novel aspect of this video is

that it will be viewed in a flight

simulator, the motion of which will

move in sympathy with a glass bottle as

it progresses through the recycling loop.

It is hoped that this medium will make

more impression on the target audience

of young adults than the rather more

staid workbook and CD-Rom.

1.3 Scope of the Report


9/75

Glass is one of the oldest of all materials

known and used by mankind. Obsidian,

a form of glass, was used by man

thousands of years ago to form knives,

arrow tips, jewellery etc. Exhibits on

display at the Corning Museum reveal

that glass artefacts were being produced

in the Mesopotamian region as early as2,500 BC.

By the year 1,500 BC glass vessels were

in widespread use for cooking and

drinking.

All the major civilisations including the

Venetian, Phoenician and Roman

empires produced ornate glassware.

The Venetian empire relocated its glass

industry onto the island of Murano (circa

1000 AD) partly for fire safety reasons

but principally to protect its glass-

making secrets. To this day the island

remains a world-renowned centre for

fine glassware.

Large-scale glass manufacture began

with the industrial revolution. Soda ash,

an important raw material, became

available at an affordable price with the

invention of the Solvay process.

The Siemens brothers developed the

modern day regenerative furnace in

Germany around 1867.

The mass production of glass containers

began at the beginning of the 20 th

century and the modern automated

bottle and jar making (IS) machine made

its appearance in 1925.

Glass light bulb production was

automated with the development of the

ribbon machine in 1926.

The large-scale production of flat glass

was originally achieved by pouring the

glass onto tables and rolling the plates

to the required thickness before

grinding and polishing each side.

Continuous plate production using

water-cooled rollers was introduced in

1925 by the Fourcault process. The flat

glass process was revolutionised in

1959 when Pilkingtons introduced thefloat process in which the molten glass

is floated onto a bath of tin thus

removing the need to grind and polish

the glass plates.

Todays furnaces owe much to these

early designs and the basic regenerative

furnace is still at the heart of large-scale

glass manufacture. The major advancessince those early days have been

essentially confined to improvements in

the refractory materials resulting in

longer furnace lifetimes and in achieving

much improved thermal efficiencies.

Today a typical container furnace would

operate continuously for a period of 8

years producing 300 tonnes per day of

molten glass at a thermal efficiency of

around 4GJ/tonne. The cost of such a

furnace would be of the order of 5million.

2. An Overview of Glass and Glassmaking

2.1 History of Glass

Glass artefacts have been inexistence for 1000s of years.

After 1000s ofyears ofdevelopment,glass is usedin all walks ofmodern life.Applicationsrange from

very simple tohi-tech.

9 Chapter 2: An Overview of Glass and Glassmaking


10/75

trade names as Pyrex. It contains about

80 percent silica, 4 percent sodium

oxide, 2 percent alumina, and 13

percent boric oxide. Glasses with this

composition show a high resistance to

chemical corrosion and temperature

changes and as such finds uses in such

products as ovenware and beakers, test

tubes, and other laboratory equipment

Lead glass, commonly called crystal

glass, is made by substituting lead

oxide for calcium oxide and often for

part of the silica used in soda-lime

glass. Lead glass is easy to melt and has

such beautiful optical properties that it

is widely used for the finest tableware

and art objects. In addition, lead oxide

increases the electrical insulation

properties of glass.

Glasses with even higher lead oxide

contents (typically 65%) may be used as

radiation shielding because of the well-

known ability of lead to absorb gamma

rays and other forms of harmful

radiation.

Fibreglass comprises fine but solid rods

of glass, each of which may be less than

one-twentieth the width of a human

hair. These tiny glass fibres can be

Glasses can be produced in an almost

infinite variety with specialist properties

to match. However the vast majority of

common items are manufactured from a

few relatively simple glasses.

Soda-lime glass is by far the most

common, finding use in themanufacture of flat glass, most

containers and electric light bulbs, and

many other industrial and art objects.

More than 90 percent of all glass

produced is soda-lime glass. The basic

composition of the glass comprises

approximately 72 percent silica (from

sand), 13 percent sodium oxide (from

soda ash), 11 percent calcium oxide

(from limestone), and about 4 percent

minor ingredients.

All glass container manufacturers use

the same basic soda-lime composition

and generally only employ 3 basic

colours. This greatly simplifies the

recycling process and allows the

different manufacturers to recycle one

anothers products without difficulty

other than the need to practice colour

segregation.

Borosilicate glass is heat-shock

resistant and better known by such

2.2 Common Types of Glass

Pyrex is one of the many tradenames for heat resistantBorosilicate glass.

The light bulb is one of themyriad of uses for soda-limeglass. UK households hold anestimated 460,000,000 lightbulbs of varying size andshapes.



11/75

loosely packed together in a wool-like

mass that can serve as heat insulation in

house construction. Alternatively they

can be used like wool or cotton fibres to

make glass yarn, tape, cloth, and mats

and as such have a huge number of

uses including: electrical insulation,

chemical filtration, and fire-fighters

suits. Fibreglass can also be combined

with plastics to extend its usefulness to

such items as aeroplane wings and

bodies, automobile shell and boat hulls.

Whilst apparently having very different

physical properties fibreglass is not that

chemically different from normal glass

and the manufacturers are able to

accommodate some common glass

(typically window glass) in with their raw

Optical Glasses

Fibreglass has manyproperties that make itattractive for uses rangingfrom thermal insulation tofibre optics.

Glasses can be designed to almost any

specified combination of optical

properties of which the most important

are the refractive index (representing

the deviation of a ray of light striking

the glass at an oblique angle) and thedispersion (the dependence of the

refractive index on wavelength resulting

in colour separation).

Glasses with high dispersion relative to

refractive index are called flint glasses

while those with relatively low

dispersions are called crown glasses.

Typically flint glasses are lead-alkali-

silicate compositions whereas crown

glasses are soda-lime glasses.


Cathode ray tubes, familiar in

televisions and computer monitors, are

essentially made from 4 different glass

component parts. Each part has a

different function and the required

properties can only be achieved by

using glasses of different

compositions. A typical CRT tube

comprises the screen, the funnel, the

neck and a glass frit or solder used to

join the component parts together.

The screen is the largest item and glass

composition will include high levels of

barium, strontium, and zirconium. The

screen is however lead free.

The other glasses are all of similarly

complex compositions but these do

contain varying amounts of lead.

Cathode Ray Tubes


12/75

Sealing Glasses

Glasses with specific properties may be

devised to meet almost any imaginable

requirement, the main restrictions

normally being the commercial

considerations, i.e. whether the

potential market is large enough to

justify the development and

manufacturing costs. For many

specialised applications in chemistry,

pharmacy, the electrical and electronics

industries, optics, the construction and

lighting industries, glass, or the

comparatively new family of materials

known as glass ceramics, may be the

only practical material for the engineer

to use.

Another application for which a large

variety of glass compositions are used is

sealing to metals for electrical and

electronic components. Here the

available glasses may be grouped

according to their thermal expansions,

which must be matched with the

thermal expansions of the respective

metals so that sealing is possible

without excessive strain being induced

by the expansion differences.

For example, sealing to tungsten in

making incandescent and discharge

lamps, borosilicate alkaline earths-

aluminous silicate glasses are suitable.

Sodium borosilicate glasses may be

used for sealing to molybdenum or the

iron-nickel-cobalt (Fernico) alloys that

are frequently employed as a substitute,

the amount of sodium oxide permissible

depending on the degree of electrical

resistance required. Glasses designed

to seal Kovar alloys require relatively

high contents of boric oxide

(approximately 20%) which keeps the

transformation temperature low and in

this case the preferred alkali is

Special Glasses

Special glass can be

designed and made tomeet almost anyrequirement.


potassium oxide which ensures high

electrical insulation.

Where the requirement for electrical

insulation is paramount, as in many

types of vacuum tube and for the

encapsulation of diodes, a variety of

lead glasses (typically containing

between 30% and 60% lead oxide) can

be used.


13/75

In addition to these basic ingredients

several other items may be added in

order to bring colour or to impart

improved chemical or physical

properties. Common additions include:

The cost of minor ingredients can be

substantial. Selenium used to whiten

clear glass costs in the order of 2,800

per tonne. Fortunately only very small

additions of these materials are required

so their effect on the overall batch cost

are low. The typical batch costs of a

commercial container glass are of the

order of 40 per tonne of glass

produced. Soda ash (sodium carbonate)

being the most expensive ingredientand also subject to the greatest price

fluctuations.

The basic (large-scale) manufacturing process and individual stages of glassmakingare illustrated below:

2.3 The Glass Making Process

2.3.1 Batch Preparation

OK

Raw materials areprecisely weighed andmixed before beingmelted.

Additive Effect on Basic Glass

Iron Brown or green colour

Chromium Green colour

Cobalt Blue colour

Sodium Sulphate Improved refining

Lead Refractive index

Alumina Improved durability

Boron Improved thermal

The composition of all commercially

produced glass is very carefully

controlled. This is achieved by

purchasing relatively pure raw materials

and ensuring that they are well mixed in

precise proportions before being fed to

the melting furnace. The major raw

materials used in large-scale container

and flat glass manufacture and their

typical purchase costs are:


PrepareBatch

Melt &Condition Form Anneal

Inspect &Pack

Store &Dispatch

Raw Materials % /tonne

Sand 60 20

Sodium Carbonate 21 100

Limestone 19 30


14/75

Recycled glass (cullet) is also added to

the melt. The cullet may arise from

within the factory as a result of

breakage or rejected ware. Cullet from

this source is termed domestic and

has the advantage of having an

identical composition to the glass

being melted. Typically a container

plant will reject or lose around 10% of

its output and all of this will be

recycled as domestic cullet.

Cullet brought into the factory from

external sources (e.g. bottle banks) is

termed foreign.

The exact composition of this cullet

will be unknown and cannot be readily

determined. However, as most

manufacturers use similar

compositions, mixing this foreign

cullet into the local glass composition

of the same colourshould present few

problems. Unfortunately this foreign

cullet is often found to contain

unwanted items such as metals,

ceramics and pyrex type glass. These

items can either discolour the glass,

pass unmelted through the furnace and

cause a defect in the final glass product

or, can even damage the lining of the

furnace. Dependent upon the level of

contamination a furnace could operate

at cullet (recycling) levels of over 90%.

An occasionally contentious point that

can limit the level of cullet addition is

the customer colour specification. Many

customers insist on colour specifications

that the glassmakers feel is

unnecessarily exacting with respect to

the final application. As the foreign

cullet is the inevitable source of any

trace contamination the effect of this

policy of over-specification is a

reduction in the recycling capacity of the

glass plant.



15/75

than 1 tonne of glass which is melted

overnight ready for working the

following morning.

The high temperatures required to melt

the glass requires a lot of fuel and

consequently the furnace is the main

energy centre in any glass plant

accounting for around 60% of the total

plant demand. Most furnaces are firedwith natural gas but can also be fired on

oil as a standby fuel. An efficient

furnace will require 4 GJ of energy for

each tonne of glass melted. Thus a

furnace melting 300 tonnes per day will

consume around 32,000 cubic metres of

natural gas each day.

Once melted the batch material must be

allowed time to thoroughly mix and

allow any bubbles to rise. The furnace

thus has a large capacity and the batch

material takes around 16 hours to pass

through the melting stage.

2.3.2 Glass Melting

Typical End Fire Furnaceshowing the melting bath,gas burner ports,regenerator chamber,distributor and forehearth.

Gas is ignited as it entersthe melting chamber

through one of the burnerports. The hot exhaustgases exit through theother burner port, heatingthe chimney blocks asthey go. The burningcycle is alternatedbetween the two burnerports at regular intervalsin order that the hotchimney blocks pre -heatthe combustion air andthus save energy.

Melting Bath

Distributor

Fore Hearth

RegeneratorChamber

Burner Ports


The raw materials and recycled glass are

fed to the glass-melting furnace. In

large-scale operations the furnace is

basically a refractory box-like structure

which operates at temperatures up to

1,600C. The furnace operates

continuously providing glass 24 hours a

day 7 days a week and all activitieswithin the factory are entirely dependent

upon its output. A furnace is designed

to operate a campaign lasting typically

10 years before it is demolished and

rebuilt. The cost of a furnace is

obviously related to its size but a typical

300 tonne per day container furnace

would cost in the order of 6 million. It

is estimated that there are currently 45

such furnaces operating in the UK

varying in size from < 50 to > 700tonne per day.

Small-scale operators may melt the glass

in pot furnaces which typically hold less

Illustration courtesy of SEPR


16/75

PollutantTypical

Emissions

Dust (particulate) 80-140

Sulphur oxides 500-750

Chlorine (as HCl) 10-50

Fluorine (as HF) 1-15

Nitrogen oxides 1000-2000

The furnace is also the source of the

majority of the airborne pollution that

results from the factory. The pollutants

and the emission levels produced by a

typical glass furnace are shown below.

A great advantage of the glass

manufacturing processes is that the

finished article is produced immediately,

as opposed to the production of an

intermediate product that then requires

transport to another factory for

conversion e.g. steel sheets made for

can manufacture.

On leaving the furnace the glass can be

either blown into moulds to form bottles

and jars, draw or floated to make flat

sheets or forced at high speed through

tiny holes to form fibres.

Bottle and jar production is achieved by

streaming the molten glass down

several feeder channels called

forehearths, which lead to the glassforming machines. The glass drops

though a hole at the end of these

forehearths and is then directed into a

series of iron moulds.

Compressed air is then used to blow the

glass to the required shape. The speed

and scale of operation is impressive.

The forming machines serving a 300

tonne per day furnace must convert

12.5 tonnes of glass each hour into

bottles and jars. Considering that the

average bottle weight is some 284

grams the machines are producing in

excess of 44,000 bottles per hour or

over 7 million per week.

The melting furnaces producing flat

glass for windows are much similar in

design but much larger than those used

in container manufacture and typically

2.3.3 Glass Forming

Glass gobs fed to moulds



17/75

severe internal stresses within the

glassware. These stresses must be

removed before the item is safe to

handle. The stresses are removed by the

process of annealing, which involves re-

heating the glass followed by a

controlled cooling cycle during which

the stresses are relieved. The length of

the annealing cycle is determined by the

thickness of the item and can be of upto 40 minutes in duration. The

annealing process is performed

continuously with the glassware on a

conveyor belt being fed through a long

tunnel kiln.

All products leaving the factory are

subject to some degree of inspection.

Originally a few items were sampled and

tested in the laboratory. The process is

now highly automated and each item is

subjected to a range of tests. A simple

beer bottle may have been through as

many as 10 different checks before it is

allowed to leave the factory.

With the very high production rate

packing and dispatch is highly

automated. Many container customers

operate a just in time policy so job

planning throughout the factory is

essential. All plants have some

warehousing but the container sector

has such a diverse product range that it

is impracticable to carry large stocks.

produce 700 tonnes per day of molten

glass. Once molten, the glass is formed

into a single ribbon by floating it on a

bath of molten tin. The bath is

connected to the melting furnace and

produces sheets with a perfect surface

finish. 700 tonnes of glass will produce

70,000 m2 of standard window glass.

Fibre glass is produced by either

drawing the glass through a bushing

containing dozens of tiny holes to form

flexible fibres used for textile type

applications or by using the centrifugal

force of a spinner to form short fibres

intended for insulation products.

The forming process for rigid glass

items involves some very rapidtemperature changes and induces

The flat or float glass furnaceproduces a continuous sheet ofglass that annealed before beingcut to lengths for furtherprocessing.

2.3.4 Annealing

2.3.5 Inspection

2.3.6 Packing & Dispatch



18/75

3. Industrial Glass Manufacture

The UK glass industry produces an

estimated 2.8 million tonnes of glass

per year from all sectors.The saleable

value of this glass is approximately

1,500 million.

The Industry may conveniently be

divided into 5 sub-sectors as follows:

The number of production sites and

relative size of each sub-sector are

shown below.

In excess of 70 sites operate some form

of commercial glass melting activity.

These manufacturing sites range in

output from studio glass blowers

producing less than 10 tonnes per year

of high value items to the largest

container facility site melting around

400,000 tonnes per year of bottles and

jars.

Production of containers for the food

industry and glazing for construction

and automotive industry accounts for

around 90% of the all glass produced in

the UK. These large-scale manufacturing

operations are centred in the Yorkshire

region (containers and flat), St Helens inLancashire (flat and fibre) and Scotland

(container). A single plant in Harlow,

Essex represents the only large

container melting facility south of the

Yorkshire region.

A single, newly opened container plant

serves Northern Ireland. The plant

became operational during 1999 and,

with the closure in 2002 of the only

container plant in the Republic of

Ireland, currently represents the only

facility on the Irish mainland.

No container or flat glass manufacturing

facility is located in Wales. The

principality is however host to 2

fibreglass plants and one of only 2 UK

plants producing screens for televisions

and computer monitors.

3.1 An Overview

5

10

15

20

25

Container

Flat Glass

Fibre

Special

Domestic

UK glass production bymanufacturing sites.

A full list of majormanufacturing sites isgiven in Appendix I.

18 Chapter 3: Industrial Glass Manufacture

Container Flat Fibre Special DomesticNumberofManufacturingSit

es


19/75

Container glass, mainly in the form of

bottles and jars, accounts for

approximately 60 % of glass production

in the UK. The 1990s saw some

rationalisation of the industry with 2

plant closures, 1 of the larger operators

selling a facility to an overseasmanufacturer and two of the smaller

operators being bought out by their

larger rivals.

1999 saw the opening of the first new

container plant in the UK for over 30

years. The new facility located in

Northern Ireland is equipped with 2

furnaces having a joint capacity of

around 280,000 tonnes/annum, and

represents the first venture into the

glass industry for the operating

company.

Despite this new venture the UK

3.2 The Container GlassSector

container industry has fared poorly by

comparison to its European competitors.

UK production has essentially remained

static over the course of the last 20

years whilst that on mainland Europe

has risen by over 30%.

By 2002 the UK container industry

comprised seven manufacturers

operating 30 furnaces on 14 sites.Individual furnace capacity ranges from

under 100 tonnes/day to in excess of

650 tonnes/day. Annual site output

also varies widely, with single furnace

sites producing perhaps 11,500 tonnes/

year and large multi-furnace sites over

400,000 /year. Actual production in

2002 was 1.70 million tonnes. The total

(melting) design capacity of this sector

of the glass industry in 2002 was 7,000

tonnes/day (2,500,000 tonnes/year).

The UK is a net importer of container

glass. The majority of these imports

arrive in the form of filled products e.g.

bottled wine and beers and include a

large but unknown quantity imported by

the public via duty-free and cross-

channel shopping. A smaller trade

exists in empty containers. No formal

system exists for the collection of

statistics from the filled products. The

most recent data (2001), submitted by

the trade organisation British Glass,

estimated a net inflow of 465,000

tonnes of container glass per year. Total

container glass flow into the UK was

thus estimated at 2.23 million tonnes.

However data collected during the

compilation of this report suggests that

the net imports are somewhat higher

and a revised net import figure of

629,000 tonnes has been adopted for

the purposes of this report.

Spirit bottles areproduced in largequantitiesmany for theexport market.

Spirit producers demandexceptionally highstandards of clarity inthe clear flint glass.



20/75

Globally the demand for flat glass has

been buoyant. Fuelled by the demand

for building and automotive glass the

industry has, over the last 20 years,

achieved an average growth rate of

approximately 5% per annum.

Since the introduction of the float

process Pilkington plc had been the sole

operator of such plants in the UK.

However, in 1999 Saint Gobain built the

first new float plant in the UK for over

40 years. The new facility began

production by late 1999 and has a

production capacity of 185,000 tonnes/

year.

Further expansion is anticipated in this

sector with the announcement in 2002

that the US operators Guardian intend to

construct a new UK plant that should be

operational in mid-2003.

Domestic production from this sector is

currently estimated at 760,000 tonnes

per year. The production of standard

4mm float glass accounts for the bulk of

this glass [~80%]. Other, higher value

flat products including laminated,

coated low-emissivity, silvered and fire-

resistant glasses account for the

balance.

As with container glass the UK is a net

importer of this material. Commercial

sensitivity results in the suppression ofaccurate data on the actual import/

export tonnages of flat glass. However

some data is available on the value of

this trade and some more limited data is

available on the volume of the trade in

terms of glass areas [m2]. From this data

it is estimated that the net in-flow of flat

glass into the UK is approximately

150,000 tonnes.

The trade in motor vehicles is also

responsible for a net in-flow of flat glass

into the UK. Data from the DTI [2001]

recorded UK car production at 1.63

million units compared with new

registrations of 2.22 million units

suggesting a net import figure of 0.59

million units. Using a typical value of 33

kg of glass per vehicle a net import of

approximately 20,000 tonnes of glass

can be derived.

3.3 The Flat Glass Sector

The global market for flat glass has beenbuoyant, with applications in building,computer and automotive industries.

The motor industry is a major user of glass.



21/75

There are five fibreglass manufacturers

in the UK, operating 8 sites and

producing two main products.

Production from this sector is estimated

at 150,000 tonnes.

Overall sales of glass fibres rose

throughout the latter part of the 1990s

and were valued at 250m in 1998.

Continuous fibre has over 40,000

different applications including

reinforcement of plastics and rubber,

electronics blinds and wall coverings.

Demand for reinforcement glass fibre

soared in the late 1980s and capacity

was increased substantially leading to

chronic over-capacity and price

reductions in the early 1990s. The

sector appears to have recovered by the

late 1990s and a 3-4% growth is

forecast for the European market. The

3.4 The Fibre Glass Sector UK is a net exporter of textile glass fibrehowever the closure of a major site at

the end of 2002 will greatly reduce the

imbalance.

The fortunes of the insulating fibre

operators are tied to those of the

building industry. Stricter regulations

governing building insulation should see

increased production in this sectoralthough competition from foamed

plastics is a growing concern.

3.5 The Domestic GlassSector

Domestic glass production covers

ovenware, drinking glasses and

giftware. Throughout the 1990s

domestic demand for tableware was

able to support 2 large-scale

manufacturing operations. Sadly a

combination of under-investment and

cheap foreign imports has led to a

serious decline in this sector and arrival

of the new century was marked with the

Dartington Crystal


Scandinavian and otherEuropean buildingregulations require thatnew homes are insulatedto very high standards.

Photo

courtesy

ofScandiahus


22/75

demise of both these large tableware

facilities. The UK currently has no

volume producer of items such as pint

pots and mass-produced tableware.

The giftware sub-sector, which includes

lead crystal melters, comprises around

20 manufacturers who typically operate

small pot furnaces melting a few tonnes

per week. Production for this sector is

estimated at 6,000 tonnes. Theoperations are relatively labour intensive

and produce high value ware. Energy

costs constitute a much lower

proportion of overall costs than for the

larger melters.

The early 1990s saw this sub-sector

also challenged by cheap imports,

notably from Eastern Europe, and

domestic production fell. The sector has

responded, and by the late 1990 with

the benefits of some innovative

designers, a small resurgence was

evident. The value of the sales from this

sector (1998) was 95m of which some

10m went for export; imports were

valued at 38m.

CRTs are an importantpart of the special glasssector.

Cathode ray tube (CRT) production used

in televisions and computer monitors is

of particular significance to this sector.

The disposal of these items is soon to

be regulated by the Waste Electrical and

Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive,

which will result in a total ban on the

landfilling of CRTs. UK production of

CRTs was 4.6 million units in 2001.

Computers and to a lesser extenttelevisions are not yet considered a

mature market and thus tracking CRTs

through the economy is complicated by

the tendency of the public to store

redundant items rather than dispose of

them.

3.6 The Special Glass Sector

The special glasses group is the most

diverse in terms of production

processes and capacities. Products

encompass lighting, television tubes,

oven hobs to specialist optical products.

Production capacities range from large

200 tonne per day furnaces to specialist

melters producing a few kilograms per

week.

The sector comprises some 13

operators with a combined output of

around 120,000 tonnes/year having a

sales value of approximately 200M.

Compiling accurate data on the imports

and exports of glass is fraught with

difficulties. Whilst glass is the

component part of many items including

beers, wines, automobiles, and

computers it is not accounted as a

separate item for the purposes of

customs data and general

manufacturing returns. Added to this is

the significant, but by its very nature

clandestine, trade in smuggled wines,

beers and spirits entering the country

through the Channel ports. Fortunately

glass containers, which constitute the

largest (legal) movement of glass, are

regulated by a system of permits which

obligate importers/exporters to account

for their trade. Data on other glass

streams has been estimated from a

variety of sources including customs

end excise data. Wherever practicable

these estimates have been cross-

checked with waste arising data to

ensure a degree of consistency.

3.7 The Availability ofImport & Export Data



23/75

Container61%

Special6%

Flat27%

Domestic 1%

Fibre6%

UK glass production by output


Container

Flat

FibreEdinburgh

Locations of Major GlassManufacturing Facilities

Glasgow

Special

Belfast

Liverpool

Leeds

Sheffield

Cardiff

London


24/75


25/75

Several, mainly governmental initiatives

in response to EU directives, are now in

place which should result in a large

increase in the volume of glass collected

and recycled or reused. The measures

are designed to promote a more

sustainable use of resources and

comprise a mixture of legal obligations

and economic instruments. The

measures include:

The Packaging Waste Regulations.

The Aggregates Tax.

The Integrated Pollution and

Prevention Control [IPPC]

Waste Strategy 2000 incorporating

Best Value Performance Indicators

Waste Minimisation Act

Waste Resources Action Programme

End-of-Life Vehicle Directive [ELV]

Waste Electrical and Electronic

Equipment [WEEE]

Removal of Hazardous Substances

[RoHS

4.2 The Glass RecyclingIndustry

The glass recycling industry essentially

comprises the cullet reprocessors who

process the recovered glass into a

useable form, and the collecting

organisations that provide the glass.

Typically the reprocessors sort and wash

the glass to remove unwanted materials

such as metals, paper, plastics and

various stones and other ceramic

matter. Glass destined for remelting atcontainer plants will undergo some form

of colour separation. Finally the

reprocessors crush the glass to the

desired size.

Until recently glass collection was an

activity confined to an arrangement

between the reprocessors and the local

council through either the bottle bank

system or their waste disposal service.

With the increase in awareness in the

benefits of recycling, and with the

availability of funds from central

government paid to schemes that are

able to divert material from landfill,

many more organisations including

charities are now in the business of

collecting glass.

Historically the glass container

manufacturing plants, and to a lesser

extent the fibre plants, were the sole

end-users of the reprocessed glass.

Consequently their locations had a

significant influence on the economics

of the recycling process. The great

majority of glass available for recycling

arises from either local council

initiatives bottle banks, kerbside

collection or other waste separation

process or the glass is collected via the

drinks trade from pubs and clubs. In

either case the glass is effectively

spread evenly across the country. Thus

Colour sorting adds value to the recycled glass.

25 Chapter 4: The Glass Recycling Industry


26/75

Approximately 20 companies are

registered by the Environment Agency

as accredited glass reprocessors. An

accredited reprocessor can convert glass

into a new product and is able to issue

Packaging Waste Recovery Notes [PRN].

These notes are only associated with

glass used for packaging i.e. container

glass.

For the purposes of the Regulations all

the container manufacturing companies

are classed as accredited reprocessors

by virtue of their ability to remelt the

glass and produce new items. Many of

the container manufactures either own

or have a commercial link with a cullet

reprocessing facility.

4.3 The Glass Reprocessors

Recycled glass containsmany impurities such asplastics and metals that mustbe removed before the culletis re-melted.

the concentration of glass

manufacturing plants in the north of the

country was a significant factor in the

economics of glass collection in the

southern counties.

The arrival of the Packaging Waste

Regulations with the attendant

obligations to achieve a target rate of

recycling has had a significant effect on

the established industry. Theregulations have spawned a number of

so called compliance schemes that take

on companies recycling obligations.

VALPAC is the largest and perhaps best

known of these compliance schemes. In

order to meet their members

obligations these schemes have not only

been instrumental in increasing the

volume of glass collected but also in

diversifying the ultimate end uses of the

glass. The growth in the use of mix-

coloured glass for aggregate use has

been the largest beneficiary from this

new source. It is estimated that

approximately 100,000 tonnes per year

of glass is currently being used as road

making aggregate substitutes.

The rapid growth of large-scale

alternative uses is leading to a re-

evaluation of glass recycling economics

as the transport costs to northern based

factories is no longer an automatic

inclusion in the equation. Currently a

London based plant is licensed to

produce around 50,000 tonnes per year

of pulverised glass for use as a sand

substitute and has the in-house capacity

to expand on this should demand arise.



27/75

major container companies (United

Glass, Rockware and Rexam) effectively

divided the country into 3 areas for the

purposes of cullet collection. The

collection infrastructure was in turn

served by 3 or 4 reprocessing plants;

some owned by the glass manufacturers

and some independent, the largest of

these being operated by Berryman. The1000th bottle bank site was

commissioned in 1982. Whilst at this

time there was no legal obligation to

achieve recycling targets, the UK

government ever mindful of the growing

demand from the European legislators

for various statutory limits, actively

encouraged the recycling effort.

4.4 The Bottlebank System

Commercial collection of glass, intended

for recycling by the container

manufacturers, began when the first

bottle banks were introduced in Barnsley

in 1977. The driving force and main

beneficiaries of this recycling initiative

were the glass container companies. The

recovered cullet provided a cheap raw

material that also gave significant

savings in furnace melting energy.

The bottle bank system was steadily

expanded to cover most of the UK. A

franchise agreement between the 3

The principal cullet reprocessors

include:

Reuse Collection Ltd

(formerly Berryman) S. Yorks & London

Day Aggregates London

Glass Recycling UK S. Yorks

Midland Glass Processing Notts

MacGlass Recycling Dalkeith

Richardson Limited Merseyside

30

20

10

0

1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002

Year

Sites

(thousand)

Growth in Bottle Bank Sites



28/75


29/75

established glass recycling community.

Whilst some of this new glass has

followed the traditional route back to

the container manufacturer via the cullet

reprocessor, the majority is directed

into the arguably less environmentally

beneficial option of road making. The

new collection schemes have been sold

to participating organisations on the

basis of ease of collection. Removingthe need for customers to colour

separate is a crucial factor in this

strategy. The schemes thus collect

mixed glass that cannot easily be

reused by the primary melters.

Valpac are the largest operators and

they typically offer free collection from

licensed premises. Currently they are

recovering around 10,000 tonnes per

year of glass from the London area and

nationally have in excess of 6,000

agreements and anticipate collecting

over 20,000 tonnes of glass in the

coming year.

An indication of the potential of these

schemes comes from the Brewers and

Licensed Retailers Association who

estimated that some 350,000 tonnes of

glass could be recovered from theirmembers premises.

Local Authorities have a duty to collect

household waste. They also must collect

commercial waste if asked and, at their

discretion, can collect industrial waste.

All the waste collected by local

4.6 Local Authorities

Kerbside Collection is increasingly seen as one of the most effective methods of achieving recycling targets. Colour separationof the glass at source adds significant value and saleability.



30/75

authorities is collectively termed

municipal waste and currently

amounts to some 30 million tonnes

each year. Since 1996/7, the amount of

municipal waste collected has been

growing at an annual rate of 3.4% per

year. 60% of municipal waste comes

from regular household collections, a

further 15% from civic amenity sites.

Most of this waste goes to landfill. LocalAuthorities are also duty bound to

prepare and publicise a waste recycling

plan which details the arrangements

made for recycling household and

commercial waste.

Most local councils have in place a

bring system of recycling banks

collecting such items as glass, paper,

metal cans, plastic and even textiles.

Many councils recognise the limitations

of these traditional bottle or can banks

and are increasingly introducing

kerbside collection schemes as a

method of increasing their recycling

rates. A number of councils have

introduced different kerbside collection

systems. A recent study, commissioned

by the Waste Resources Action

Programme (WRAP) and undertaken by

British Glass, aimed to determine the

number of kerbside collection schemes

3000

2000

1000

0

1993 1995 1997 1999 2001

Kerbside Collection Starts

Glass(tonnes/year)

[ro

llingaveragebyquarter]

British Glass data onRecycling in LocalAuthority Areas typicallyshows a significantincrease in glass takeafter the introduction ofa kerbside collectionscheme.


in operation and to quantify the

resultant increase in glass collected by

participating authorities. The study

estimated that 19% of collecting

authorities were operating a kerbside

collection scheme that included glass

and that these schemes gave around

10% of households access to kerbside

glass recycling.

The report concluded:

If all 21.1 million UK households were

offered kerbside collection then

approximately 650,000 tonnes would be

collected annually through kerbside

schemes. Bottle bank collection would be

reduced but still contribute a further

230,000 tonnes. Total glass collection

would thus be estimated at 880,000

tonnes per year.

British Glass routinely collects data

[quarterly] from councils on the

amounts of glass recovered by bottle

banks and other methods including

kerbside collections. The potential for

increased glass collection from the

introduction of a kerbside scheme is

illustrated below. The chart shows the

typical increases in glass take with the

introduction of a kerbside scheme; the

data is taken from the British Glass

database.


31/75


32/75


33/75

The Pollution Prevention and Control Act

(1999) represents the UKs

implementation of EC Directive 96/61/

EU. The directive applies to all glass

manufactures with melting capacities in

excess of 20 tpd. IPPC promises to takea holistic view of the environmental

effects of glassmaking. There is a

specific requirement to include waste

management and energy efficiency in

process considerations. Of concern to

industrial operators is that IPPC

espouses the principles of BAT [Best

Available Technique] rather than the

BATNEEC [Best Available Technique Not

Entailing Excessive Costs] associated

with IPA.

The directive was intended to be

adopted (by all member states) by

October 1999 and existing installations

given 8 years to meet the requirements.

In the event the UK missed the deadline

and the act was adopted in England and

Wales in July 2000 and Scotland in

September. Failure to transpose the act

to Northern Ireland eventually resulted

in the European Court of Justiceinitiating legal proceeding against the

UK.

5.2 Integrated PollutionPrevention & ControlDirective (IPPC)

5.3 Packaging WasteRegulations

packaging material, including glass,

which must be recovered and recycled.

The regulations currently apply to

companies that produce (or handle)

more than 50 tonnes per year of

packaging and have a turnover in excess

of 2 million per annum. The

regulations set overall recovery and

recycling targets and identify apackaging chain with each link in the

chain being allocated a percentage of

the responsibility to meet statutory

targets. The waste chain and associated

responsibilities comprise raw material

suppliers [6%], converters [9%], packers

and fillers [37%] and the retailers [48%].

The intention of the UK act was that

domestic targets would be progressively

increased until they matched the EU

Directive targets by the year 2006.

However, the UKs recently announced

targets for 2003 show no increase on

the previous year and are set at a 59%

recovery target and a 19% material-

specific recycling target.

The proposed EU targets are listed

below but are themselves subject to

(upward) review:

Between 60% and 70% by weight of

packaging waste to be recovered

Between 55% and 70% by weight of

packaging waste to be recycled

Minimum recycling targets by

material by weight: glass [60%],

paper and board [55%], metals

[50%], plastics [20%].

The UK system allows companies to

meet their obligations without actually

The Packaging Waste Regulations

represents the UKs implementation of

EC Directive 94/62/EC. The regulations

came into effect in March 1997 and set

statutory targets for amount of

33 Chapter 5: Environmental Legislation


34/75

practising any form of recycling. This is

achieved by a system of tradable

permits called Packaging Recovery Notes

[PRNs] and Packaging Export Recovery

Notes (PERNs). These notes provide

evidence that material has either been

recycled PRN or exported PERN and

companies must purchase sufficient

notes to cover their obligations.

The UKs market driven approach to

implementing the Waste Directive is very

different from that of all our European

partners. The European model typically

empowers a single body to be

responsible for investment in recycling,

funding for which comes from

packaging levies. A frequent criticism of

the UK system is that its avowed

intention was merely to meet the

minimum requirements of the EU

Packaging directive at the lowest

possible cost.

When the UK system was devised it was

envisaged that the reprocessors would

use the revenues from sales of PRNs to

invest in the extra capacity that in turn

would be needed as higher recycling

and recovery targets were introduced. In

practice the results have been mixed.

2002 saw significant increases in the

amount of glass, plastic and wood

packaging reprocessed in the UK. In

2001 some 697,000 tonnes of glass

were reprocessed: an increase of 99,000

tonnes [16%] on the previous year.

However, growth in paper and board

reprocessing has been achieved entirelythrough export, with domestically

reprocessed material recording an

actual 2% fall on the previous year.

Perversely, with the PRN system

subsidies, UK paper packaging waste is

being exported but in order to keep the

paper mills running at economic levels

the operators are being forced to import

a near identical volume of waste paper.

The actual EU targets are currently being

revised. The revision process has

witnessed some often acrimonious

exchanges between the various factions.

New targets should be announced in the

spring of 2003. The probability is that

glass packaging will receive a material

specific recycling target of 60% but a

delay to 2008 is gaining favour. The

implications for the UK container

industry could be profound. The current

UK glass-recycling infrastructure could

not deliver this volume of glass. The

managing director of one of the UKs

leading companies was of the opinion

that:

It is unlikely the glass industry would

be able to recycle 60% of glass

packaging by 2006. It would require

"massive additional support", with over

200 million needed to support the

necessary kerbside collection schemes

and a tripling of the number of bottle

Typical PRN prices -November 2002


MaterialPrice/tonne

()

Glass 26 - 33

Paper 26 - 30

Aluminium 32 - 45

Steel 24 - 29

Plastics 25 - 33

Mixed -(energy recovery)

25 - 30

23 - 29Wood -(recovery)


35/75

banks to around 66,000. Container

manufacturers have the capacity to

achieve a 50% recycling rate leaving the

remaining 10% to aggregates and other

applications.

However the likelihood is that the

growth in the infrastructure will be

directed to the aggregates market. The

compliance schemes are activelycultivating their links with local

authorities and the road-making

aggregate suppliers with a view to

acquiring the glass that will become

available with the widespread adoption

of kerbside collection schemes. In

simple terms the compliance schemes

and aggregates companies will receive

the glass from the local authorities, the

glass will then be used to repair local

roads and the resultant PRN revenue will

help subsidise the whole process.

This being the case the flow of recycled

glass to the container manufacturers

will be greatly reduced with resultant

increases in both the uses of virgin raw

materials and energy, as recycled glass

is much easier to melt. The PRN system

may thus, in the case of the glass,

deliver a mechanism that technically

achieves the set targets. However, in

terms of sustainable use of materials,

many view a c losed-loop re-melting

option as being preferable to the one-off

road-fill route; an option often

disparagingly referred to by the glass

industry as horizontal land fill.

For their part the aggregate lobby points

to the UKs lacklustre performance to

date in its efforts to increase the glass

take. The existing arrangements are

inadequate and are the cause of the

UKs lowly position in the European

recycling league. Furthermore, they

contend, the aggregates glass that will

be collected w ill come principally from

the licensed trade and will thus be an

addition to the traditional glass.

5.4 Aggregates Tax

This tax is designed to encourage the

recycling of aggregates and reduce the

impact of quarrying. The levy took effect

on 1 April 2002 and applies at rate

1.60 per tonne of virgin aggregate.

The glassmakers have managed to

negotiate an exemption for their

limestone and sand use. However their

principal concern with this regulation is

that it provides an additional incentive

to place glass into the aggregates

market rather than back to their

furnaces.

Recycled glass reduces the need forquarrying of virgin aggregates.



36/75

The climate change levy seeks to reduce

the emissions of the greenhouse gas

CO2by imposing a levy on industrial and

commercial use of fossil fuels

(excluding oil). Many sectors, including

the glass industry, have negotiated an

80% rebate on the levy in exchange for

accepting energy efficiency targets.

The target for the glass industry is to

achieve a 9.2 % energy efficiency

improvement by the year 2010. As

recycled glass is between 20 - 30%

easier to melt than virgin raw materials,

its contribution to the glass industrys

target is significant. If the industry

cannot get the increasing levels of cullet

that formed the basis for much of their

proposed energy savings then they riskthe prospect of missing their climate

change targets and forfeiting their tax

rebate at a cost of several millions of

pounds.

Curiously direct savings of CO2by the

substitution of cullet for raw materials

do not count towards the industrys

targets. Every tonne of glass made from

recycled materials saves 200kg of CO2.

The climate change process does

however introduce the concept of CO2

trading. This trading scheme could

benefit the re-melting route for recycled

glass as CO2 credits would accrue if theglass were re-melted but would be lost if

the material were to be directed into the

aggregates market.

The price of CO2peaked at just over 12

per tonne in October 2002 but by the

end of November had fallen to around

5 per tonne and showed no sign of

recovery as of early January 2003.

Details of the price movement of CO2are

given below.

5.5 Climate Change Levy

May

02

CO

-Pricepertonne

()

2

July

Sept

Nov

Jan

03

CO2 Tradingprice movements JanNov 2002



37/75

Approximately 1.9 million motor

vehicles are scrapped each year in the

UK. The vehicles contain around 60,000

tonnes of glass equivalent to 3% of the

vehicles weight.

The EU End of Life Vehicle (ELV)

Directive 2000/53/EC places the

responsibility for these materials back

with the original manufacturers and

requires materials (including glass) to

be removed from the vehicle to

encourage recycling. The Directive came

into force in the UK in April 2002.

Whilst it is comparatively easy to remove

the glass prior to any shredding or

crushing activity it is extremely labour

intensive. Unfortunately even carefully

recovered glass has little attraction to

the original suppliers. Much of the glass

is 2-ply laminated and contains a PVB

filler and increasing numbers of vehicles

have integrated heating elements or

radio antenna within the windscreens

which could not be returned to the

furnace.

The option favoured by the car

wreckers is to crush or shred the vehicle

with the glass in-situ. The glass

ultimately emerges from the shredding

process mixed with crushed stones and

concrete (the same shredders are used

for washing machines that contain aconcrete ballast, also vehicle owners

tend to fill the old car with rubbish for

its final trip to the scrap yard). The final

dense media fraction contains

approximately 30% glass and has been

shown to be potentially useful as either

trench backfill for the utility companies

or as road making aggregate.

5.6 End-of-life Vehicles (ELV)

As well as metal, glass,rubber and plastic, ELVscontain an average of2.66 in loose change!

5.7 Waste Electrical &Electronic Equipment(WEEE)

Waste electrical and electronic

equipment accounts for around 4% of

the municipal waste stream and is the

fastest growing form of waste.

The regulations for dealing with this

waste will take two forms. The first, onWEEE, deals with the management of

waste and targets the collection and

recovery of the material and sets a

collection target of 4kg per capita.

The second [The Removal of Hazardous

Substances (RoHS)] restricts the use of

certain heavy metals including lead and

brominated flame-retardants that can be

used in the manufacture of most new

products.



38/75

Cathode ray tubes (CRT) comprise a

significant proportion of this waste

stream.

The Industry Council for Electronic

Equipment Recycling (ICER) estimates

that there could be 100,000 tonnes of

CRTs entering the UK waste stream each

year, some 10% by weight of total WEEE.

The main hazard associated with CRTs

is their heavy metal content. The funnel

and neck glasses contain between 8-25%

lead oxide, while the screen glass, which

has a high barium content but is

virtually lead-free, is coated with a

cadmium-based material. Inside a CRT

are a range of coatings containing

selenium, strontium, arsenic and

phosphorus.

Current disposal practice in the UK is to

crush and landfill the tubes leading to a

risk of heavy metals leaching into

groundwater.

5.8 Heavy Metal Content

The heavy metal content of glass is of

particular interest to the container

sector whose concern is principally

centred on lead. The problem stems

from the packaging regulations, which

seek to limit the permissible heavy

metal content of all packaging

materials.

Whilst lead is not an intentionalinclusion in container glass, trace

amounts do get into the system via the

recycling chain. Fortunately the glass

melting process safely assimilates lead

and other metals into the glass.

However the regulations set a limit of

100 ppm for the heavy metals content

[sum of lead, mercury, cadmium and

hexavalent chrome] for all packaging

materials.

As glass accounts for over half the

weight of TVs, a recycling route for this

material must be found if the proposed

targets are to be met. Returning the

tubes to their original manufacturer for

reuse or re-melting is not considered a

viable option. A WRAP funded project

has been commissioned to investigate

potential alternative uses for the glass

fraction.

A UK company Nulife [www.nulifeglass.

com] have developed a process for

extracting the lead content from the

CRTs and is currently seeking partners

to exploit the technology.

An estimated250,000,000 CRTs areproduced globally eachyear. This number willdecrease as plasmascreen technology

develops.



39/75

The glass industry has managed to

negotiate derogation to this limit until

the year 2006. Had this derogation not

been forthcoming the implications for

glass recycling would have been severe,

as there is no easy way to screen out the

offending lead glasses at the recycling

facilities. Full implementation of these

regulations may eventually lead to a

major reduction in the closed-loop routefor recycled glass.

5.9 Security Tags

Whilst not an environmental issue the

use of security tags serves to highlight

how conflicting commercial

considerations can have significant

effects on the glass manufacturers

ability to conform to legislation.

These tags are typically added to high

value items such as spirit bottles to

prevent theft. The tags comprise 2 wafer

thin strips of nickel and cobalt and are

designed to activate a radio alarm sited

at the exit of a store. By necessity the

tags will be tightly affixed to the item so

will remain with the glass throughout

the recycling crushing and sorting

process.

The problem for the glassmaker is that

the metals, particularly cobalt, are very

strong colourants and the tags are most

likely to be returned to a furnace

melting clear glass.



40/75

6.1 Background

Domestic UK production of glass from

all sectors can be very accurately

determined from factory output. Some

2.8 million tonnes of glass was

produced in 2001. Accurate data is also

available for the import and export of

certain glass items. Unfortunately most

of the glass imported into or exported

out of the country is in the form of

packaging or as an integral part of a

complex item e.g. television or motor

vehicle.

Information on this flow of glass is less

precise and relies on data typically

collected by trade organisations.

Fortunately most of the uses to which

the great majority of the glass is

employed can be described as mature

in the sense that new items are

replacing old ones. This being the case

then the waste stream should provide a

mechanism against which the input

values should tally.

6 The Mass Balance Model of Glass

UK GlassProduction

Imports

GlassProducts

Commercial

Domestic

Glass Reprocessors Recycling

LandfillReuse

Exports

Alternative Uses

The flow of glass through the economy

is depicted in simple terms in figure 6.1.

Essentially imported glass adds to the

volume of domestically produced glass,

exports reduce this total and the

balance progresses into the economy. A

small, and ever reducing, amount of

product is refilled or reused, the

remainder is simply split between thatreclaimed for recycling (all uses) or is

destined for landfill.

Figure 6.2 is a simplified representation

of the various recycling loops that

operate within the industry. Virgin raw

materials are mixed with recovered

glass arising either from within the

factory, recovered from within the same

glass sector or recovered from other

sectors. The raw materials andrecovered glass are reprocessed in the

melting furnace, losing some mass in

the form of CO2. The glass then enters

the economy as the domestically

produced stream depicted in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1

Simplifiedrepresentation of

the flow of glassthrough the UKeconomy.

40 Chapter 6: The Mass Balance Model of Glass


41/75

6.2 Mass Balance Boundaries

This study has been commissioned to

consider the mass flows that are the

result of the industrial production ofglass. The boundary of this study

encompasses all large-scale UK

domestic manufacture and includes the

imports and exports of glass and,

wherever possible, those items having a

significant glass content e.g. motor

vehicles and computer monitors.

The use of raw materials, including

energy, required for domestic

production has been included. However,

Glass from

other Sectors

Landfill

Reuse

Alternative Uses

Emission

to Air

Raw MaterialsSand, Soda Ash

Limestone etc.

InternalRecycling

RecycledwithinSector

the boundary does not encompass the

energy associated with the production

of these raw materials and their

transport and nor does it include the

transportation energy of the finishedproducts.

The boundary is extended to consider to

the end-users of glass with particular

reference to the issue of recycling and/

or reuse. Finally the boundary is

extended to the refuse stream where

data from waste analysis surveys is

compared with that derived from the

mass balance process.

Figure 6.2 Simplified representation of the various recycling loops operating within the industry.


GlassProducts


42/75

The container sector is the largest of the

glass manufacturing industry in the UK.

The sector produced 1.70 million tonnes

in 2001, which accounted for

approximately 60 % of all glass

production in the UK. The great majority

of this glass finds use as packagingmaterial for the food and drinks

industries and as such a significant

amount of the glass is exported; the

spirits market being the most

significant. Similarly large quantities of

container glass are imported into the UK

as packaging for imported foodstuffs

and drinks. Overall the UK is a large net

importer of container glass.

Unfortunately no formal system existsfor the collection of statistics from the

filled products. The most recent data,

collected by the glass trade organisation

and submitted to UK governmental

agencies, estimated imports at 990,000

tonnes and exports at 525,000 tonnes

giving a net inflow of 465,000 tonnes of

container glass per year. However this

total would seem to be at variance with

detailed waste surveys which estimate

some 1.73 million tonnes of glass in the

domestic stream. The commercial waste

glass stream, that going to hotels,

restaurants and the licensed trade,

accounts for a further 600,000 tonnes

producing a total container glass flowinto the UK is thus estimated at 2.33

million tonnes. The most unreliable

element of the balance is the value

ascribed to imported glass. This figure

includes an estimate of the glass

imported by the public from duty-free

and cross channel shopping and is

inherently difficult to calculate. For the

purposes of this report the value of

990,000 tonnes of imported glass will

be revised to 1,154,000 tonnes. Net

imports are thus set at 629,000 tonnes.

The majority of container glass

produced in the UK is clear. The colour

distribution of glass produced is given

below in Figure 6.3.1

6.3 The Container GlassSector

Amber15%

Green18%

Other1%

Clear66%

Figure 6.3.1 UK Container Glass Manufacture By Colour



43/75

Green48%

Figure 6.3.2 UK Recycled Glass By Colour

Amber11%

Clear41%

Unfortunately for the container industry

there is a large disparity between the

colour of glass that it manufactures and

the colour of glass that it recovers

through the bottle bank system. The

reasons for this mismatch are mainly

due to the fact that our exports tend to

be in the form of clear bottles for the

spirits market whilst our imports consist

largely of coloured wine and beerbottles.

The colour distribution of the recycled

glass that is returned to the container

manufactures is given below in Figure

6.3.2



44/75


45/75

Tables 6.3.4 and 6.3.5 provide a more

detailed analysis giving information on

the mass flows within the factory and

include raw materials, fuel and

Table 6.3.4

Container GlassFactory Inputs

combustion air on the input side and air

emissions and factory waste on the

output side.


Factory InputsK tonnes per annum

Raw Materials

Water

RefractoriesFurnace rebuilds/repairs

210

0.7

Flint Green Amber

184

0.6

807

3

1200

4

1282Total FactoryInputs 112349347339

Total

Ktpa

Sand 17 144568729

Soda Ash 6 13167215

Limestone 1 38110149

Dolomite 5 04954

Saltcake 0.6 0.278

Nepheline Syenite 0 03131

Chromite 0.3 000.3

Calumite 0 03434

Iron Oxide 0.04 000.04

Pyrites 0 0.400.4

External (container) 305 68256629

External (plate) 0 06565

Cullet

Total Feedstock 335 29312881915

Combustion

Natural Gas 39 34149222

Gas oil 0.03 0.030.10.2

HFO 2 2913

Combustion Air 70 61026793985


46/75

Table 6.3.5

Container GlassFactory Outputs

Flat glass manufacture represents the

second largest sector in the UK glass

manufacturing industry. Currently only 2

companies produce flat glass in the UK

and annual domestic production is

estimated at 750,000 tonnes. Of this

tonnage, around 70 per cent is used as

glazing products for buildings, 10 per

cent for automotive applications and 20

per cent used in furniture and other

interior applications.

Some data is produced relating to

imports and exports but that relating to

tonnage is usually suppressed on the

grounds of commercial sensitivity.

Where data is published it is usually

presented in the form of sales value or

in glazed area (m2). This latter format

provides some insight into the tonnage

of glass involved as most flat glass is

produced at a thickness of 4mm and

with a density of 2.5 tonnes per cubic

meter. Thus 1 m2 of 4mm flat glass will

have a mass of approximately 10kg.

6.4 The Flat Glass Sector


Factory Outputs

Packed Products

Totaltpa

Flinttpa

Greentpa

Ambertpa

11402081698267 299527 258533

Landfill (ex rebuilds)

CO2

N2

Emissions to air

NOX

560064

2063249

3375105373

832989

3068690

5019825314

145479

535936

87669928

127446

469506

76803813

Total FactoryOutputs

7339077 4932833 1284674 1121570

SOX 17172553 446 391

Water 1200000 806826 209576 183599

25081 16863 4380 3837

Furnace rebuilds/

repairs

Refractories

28244200 734 643

Factory OutputsK tonnes per annum

Packed Products

Emissions to

glass guide uk[1]

Documents