Effective April 26, 1996 Consumers Glass turned the purchase of non-furnace ready recycled glass in Ontario over to Rosen Continental Inc. They process it into a quality product at their new state-of-the-art facility in Guelph.
Why did Consumers Glass change the recycling system?
Specifically Consumers Glass wants to use a lot more recycled glass in its production of new glass containers, and it is looking for a consistent reliable quantity and quality of furnace ready material. Last issue, Glass Works shared with its readers the results of an end-market analysis. Even though it indicated the processing and end market capabilities significantly exceeded the supply from municipal recycling programs in 1995, Consumers Glass wanted a facility that could absorb future growth.
Kipling has space restrictions that make expansion impossible. Rosen Continental, recognizing the potential for growth in the market place and to address its own need for larger facilities, presented a site closer to Toronto, and central to the province.
What are the drivers of the anticipated growth? Consumers Glass believes that householders should be given an economic choice when making the decision to dispose or recycle their used packaging.
Today 2700 communities in North America have opted for some form of user pay approach for garbage. One of the outcomes of user pay is the rapid change in behaviour of people to reduce garbage generation and increase recycling. Overwhelmingly, results in these communities have shown a substantial change in recycling rates, from a modest 62% to a whopping 528% increase.
What should the recycling community expect next? As Glass Works projected in our June 1993 issue ( Vol. 4, No 2) the recycling system is becoming more flexible, responding to local market realities while the global objective to divert material from landfill becomes stronger. Resource Priority Management, the RPMreg. model, is based on obtaining the highest value from the materials or resources involved. Glass Works believes that Activity-Based Costing (ABC), introduced last issue, is a sophisticated tool that will help program owners and operators determine RPMreg. priorities.
Glass Works believes that recycling will become more competitive. And competition will drive program efficiency. Certainly the recycling community has indicated a high degree of interest in ABC, over 500 copies of the ABC report have been requested.
Competition will also drive quality up. Higher product quality is a positive consequence for all stakeholders.
It also reinforces the fact that recycling programs do not manage waste, they handle and ship raw material for remanufacturing. Of all materials container glass provides the opportunity for a truly closed loop production cycle. Glass container production is a never ending story
The key elements of this approach are very simple.
RPM® is:
systematic
cyclic
resource based
synergistic
autonomous
influential
dynamic
It is part of a management system to balance economic and environmental criteria.
Copyright © 1996 Glass Works