When your day-to-day priorities are focused on securing orders and delivering on your promise to customers, the question of what happens to the waste materials your company generates may seem relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

However, most waste materials have a high value, particularly those which can be used easily as a raw material for new products such as glass. So, if you don’ t properly consider the value of the waste generated through your company’ s daily activities, you are probably missing out on major financial savings, as well as the opportunity to boost your company’ s reputation.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Ever since we put the“ three Rs” at the core of our business strategy – waste reduction, reuse and recycling – we have realised unforeseen benefits. Firstly, we are continuously looking at how waste can be minimised, such as by reducing packaging to supply our products, and at how any waste materials associated with manufacturing integral blinds can be reused.

Not all materials can be reused, so recycling is the next best thing. In 2021, we developed the UK’ s first successful IGU recycling scheme of its kind, enabling post-consumer double and triple glazed units removed by our customers during window and door replacement contracts to be collected and crushed into cullet for new glass manufacturing. We saw a massive opportunity to prevent high quality glass needlessly going to landfill, and the initiative has proved to be extremely successful with more than 2,600 tonnes of glass recycled to date.

Because this initiative was never about generating extra income for Morley Glass, every penny we receive for the cullet goes into a fund we set up called GreenVision. This provides grants to individuals, groups and charities working on environmental and social improvement initiatives in their local communities.

How does IGU recycling save installers money?

If you are a window and door installation company, what do you do with the post-consumer IGUs removed during replacement work? Throwing them into

the general waste skip destined mainly for landfill may seem easy, but it will be costing your business dearly because of the high costs associated with this type of waste.

These costs can be reduced by putting a simple process in place for storing any waste IGUs when vans return from sites so they can be collected by Morley Glass or other glass recyclers – in our case totally free of charge. This will massively reduce how much waste goes into the general waste skip, potentially saving thousands of pounds every year.

Why bother reusing waste when we can recycle?

Recycling is crucial for improving sustainability, but it still has energy use and CO2 emissions associated with it, such as for the crushing, transportation and processing of cullet. So, we need to think about anything that can be reused first, and this can deliver financial and reputational benefits too.

For example, we ensure the steel drums used by our sealant supplier are reused rather than being sent for recycling. To date, almost 1,900 drums have been collected and reconditioned by our waste handling partner so they can be sold on for a second life. The revenue we receive from this also goes into our GreenVision fund.

In addition, the wooden boxes used by Pellini S. p. A. to transport all our bespoke ScreenLine integral blind orders from their factories in mainland Europe are reused. These are collected by local schools who use them as a raw material in design and technology projects. In addition, the boxes are used by The Pieces Project, a ground-breaking programme which helps young people unlock their entrepreneurial and creative potential. These wooden boxes that we no longer need are the primary raw material for this programme.

Find out more about Morley Glass’ s waste reuse and recycling programme at www. morleyglass. co. uk