By Celsias Team
Posted on Oct. 13, 2010. Listed in:
Ever thought about what happens with that pile of recycling you so diligently put out for curb-side collection? According to some businesses, the co-mingling of recycled materials— glass, cans, paper and plastic for example—is resulting in as little as 30 percent of collected glass being recycled, which in turn is impacting the carbon footprint of the wine industry.
Key stakeholders from local and central government, the waste management industry and food and beverage brands visited Villa Maria Estate’s winery in Auckland yesterday and listened as those involved in the wine industry asked to use the new “Supercity” start in Auckland to safeguard our export wine industry.
John Webber, general manager of the Glass Packaging Forum says the move to co-mingled collections of glass, cans, paper and plastic in a single wheelie bin may have increased overall recovery rates but it has cut the quality of the recovered materials.
“Where glass is colour separated at kerbside, 98 percent can be remanufactured into glass containers at the OI glass furnace in Penrose, Auckland. However if glass is compacted with other materials in the collection vehicle, the amount of quality glass which can be used to make new glass has reduced to as little as 30 percent to 40 percent. Even with newer systems one in four glass bottles will be lost to the remanufacturing process.”
He says the reduction in quality glass could threaten New Zealand’s world leading performance of over 60 percent recycled glass content in New Zealand-made glass containers.
“This is a real problem because reducing the amount of recycled glass in wine bottles is now having a direct impact on our ability to sell New Zealand bottled wine overseas. If we can’t keep the carbon content of our New Zealand manufactured glass bottles competitive by efficient recycling here, then wine for the mass commercial market may be bulk exported and bottled closer to the end-market.”
It’s a point not lost on Villa Maria Estate’s executive director, Fabian Yukich. As part of its policy of continuous improvement in reducing environmental impact, Villa Maria performs independently audited carbon emission measurements.
“This is crucial to winning and keeping valuable export contracts for major supermarkets and other retailers. For a premium wine producer like Villa Maria, glass is the only option, but it is also a significant part of our carbon footprint making recycling recovery rates vital to our sustainable initiatives,” says Yukich.
Co-mingling, he says, is an undesirable way to collect glass because a significant amount of glass gets mixed with paper and broken into pieces that are too small to be colour sorted, therefore making it only suitable for lower value uses.
"By collecting glass separately, bottles can be effectively re-used over and over again, which is the most energy and carbon efficient way of providing quality containers for New Zealand wine."
Put simply" “The higher the amount of recycled glass in a glass bottle, the lower the bottle’s carbon footprint”. He says that it critical the new Auckland Council takes this issue seriously and makes it a top priority.
Image: Flickr- shnnn
