Glass & Sealed Units
Joint initiative wins top glass industry sustainability award
A pioneering glass recycling scheme that enables post-consumer glass units from window and door replacements to be collected and crushed to make new glass has been recognised by the UK glass industry ’ s representative trade body , British Glass .
The initiative was named winner of the ‘ Sustainable Practice ’ award at the Glass Focus Awards 2021 in a prestigious ceremony attended by more than 100 people recently in central Manchester . Saint- Gobain Glass and Morley Glass triumphed in a highly competitive field which draws entrants from across the glass industry , from food and drink packaging and medical equipment to all aspects of glass used in construction .
The scheme saves energy and raw materials as well as benefiting the broader community in four key stages . Firstly , Morley Glass collects the old glass units that installers of its Uni-Blinds ® integral blind units remove during window and door replacement projects – this waste glass is taken to its Leeds HQ and manufacturing centre on the return legs of its daily deliveries .
Stages two and three involve crushing the post-consumer glass units on-site at Morley Glass to create high quality glass cullet . This is then
All the winners in the 2021 Glass Focus Awards organised by British Glass .
collected by Saint-Gobain Glass for use as a raw material in the manufacture of new float glass at their Yorkshire factory , helping to reduce the need for ‘ virgin ’ raw materials .
The final stage is putting the revenue raised from the production of glass cullet to good use in the community through the GreenVision fund . This enables environmental micro-initiatives and charities across West Yorkshire to apply for grants of £ 500 to support their activities , which has so far provided money to pay for everything from raised vegetable planting beds to the redevelopment of a primary school ’ s garden .
The benefits of the initiative are far-reaching according to Ian Short , Managing Director of Morley Glass , who said :
“ We are absolutely thrilled to win at the Glass Focus Awards 2021 ! The initiative has been a huge success since we started in 2019 , so much so that we have recently had to replace our original machinery with a fully automated plant that triples our glass processing capacity .
( Left ) Mike Butterick , Marketing Director , Saint- Gobain Glass United Kingdom & Ireland with
( 2nd left ) Ian Short , Managing Director of Morley Glass , collecting their 2021 Glass Focus Award .
“ To date the scheme has collected over 1,200 bags of glass cullet weighing more than 680 tonnes . This has reduced the need for virgin sand which is used in glass manufacturing by more than half a million kilos . But as every tonne of cullet saves 300kg of CO 2 emissions , and the amount of energy needed to power the average home for six months , we have been able to make energy savings to date equivalent to 341 ‘ energy years ’ for the typical UK home .”
Morley Glass is the leading manufacturer of integral blinds in the UK door and window industry through its Uni-Blinds branded range . Its 50,000 sq . ft state-of-the-art factory in Leeds is the world ’ s largest production facility of its kind for Screenline blind systems , from which it serves installers across the UK with the most competitive lead times and complimentary delivery .
www . morleyglass . co . uk
78 JANUARY 2022 CLEARVIEW-UK . COM