Re-Gen signs long-term contract with 5 Recycling Group

Re-Gen Waste Ltd., an integrated recycling and waste management company based in Northern Ireland, has signed a £10 million ($12.5 million) contract to provide all its collected glass to the High 5 Recycling Group, a Belgium-based glass recycling company. Re-Gen says the contract ensures that 95 percent of the glass collected by Re-Gen will be processed back into glass bottles.

Joseph Doherty, managing director of Re-Gen, says, “This new contract means that Re-Gen can continue to offer a glass processing service to all our customers. Dealing with glass that is mixed together with other dry recyclable waste is one of the biggest issues facing materials sorting facilities today. The majority are incapable of recycling glass due to breakage, which ultimately means glass ends up in landfill.”

Doherty continues, noting, “In its unprocessed form, MRF (materials recovery facility) glass is comprised of small shards of glass mixed with contaminants of paper labels, plastic caps and general dirt, which is of little or no commercial value. Separating recoverable glass from these contaminants and washing it produces a visually cleaner glass product and yields an added value product for resale.”

To meet the needs of High 5 Recycling, Re-Gen recently invested in a glass screening plant at its headquarters location in Newry, Northern Ireland. The company says the new system improves the screening and cleaning of recycled glass.

“Having conducted significant research in the sector, we established that High 5 Recycling operates the most technically advanced glass plant in Europe, with the requisite technology to successfully sort unprocessed and contaminated glass. Our decision to work together was an obvious one,” Doherty continues.

Alexandre Halbrecq, director at High 5 Recycling, says, “We have been extremely impressed to date with the quality of MRF glass that Re-Gen has supplied to us, no doubt attributable to the significant investment in their on-site, high-tech glass screening plant.

“High 5 Recycling has developed a technology to allow the separation of this glass by color. One of the end products is an added value glass colored midway between amber and green called ‘dead leaf’. The glass possesses interesting chemical properties of use to industrialists.

“We are the first company to start producing this type of glass and look forward to a successful working relationship with Re-Gen where together we can yield recoverable glass to prevent it reaching landfill which is both wasteful and socially irresponsible.”