Viridor opens Scottish glass recycling plant

United Kingdom-based recycling and solid waste services provider Viridor has opened a £25 million ($38 million) glass recycling facility in Newhouse, Scotland.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead was on hand to help open what Viridor calls an advanced glass recycling facility that is one of only three such plants worldwide.

The Newhouse plant will “reduce reliance on imported materials for whisky and beverage bottles, and ensure 100 percent of Scottish packaging glass is fit for use by the burgeoning Scotch whisky and drinks sectors,” says Viridor in a blog post announcing the opening.

The facility will accept glass from 17 Scottish local authorities and has been designed to recover up to 97 percent of input materials and achieve up to 99 percent product purity, “exceeding the quality requirements for a Scotch sector focused on high-end product packaging,” says Viridor.

A partnership with insulation provider Superglass http://www.superglass.co.uk/ in Stirling, Scotland, will provide a home for some of the material produced.

The Viridor plant uses some 15 optical sorters, X-ray sorters, more than one-half kilometer (0.3 miles) of conveyor belts and 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) of electrical cabling distributed among three floors of processing towers.

“Building on an existing network and over £357 million of investment in Scotland’s green economy over the last 24 months, Newhouse brings the U.K.’s most advanced glass recycling center home to the central belt, and places Scotland at the leading edge of global glass recycling,” says Ian McAulay, chief executive of Viridor.

“A vital key in unlocking Scottish Government circular economy policy, this latest investment will not only help drive glass recycling and the sustainability of Scotch whisky, but will be a real boost for a Lanarkshire economy fast becoming an important base for Scotland’s green sectors.”

“I welcome this significant investment in modern recycling infrastructure,” says Cabinet Secretary Lochhead. “Glass packaging is important to a number of Scottish food and drinks manufacturers and glass recycling makes sense for our economy and the environment.”