A glass recycling program has five key steps:
Curbside programs are flexible. Recyclers can obtain material from residential collection, by servicing IC&I customers or by offering dropoff depots.
Deposit return systems for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages tend to have good return rates but lack the flexibility of curbside programs.
By Glass Works' estimation there are over 1000 municipal recycling programs in Canada. Some are run by the municipality and others are contracted to private firms. However, there is no central data source that can give a thorough overview of recycling programs across Canada. To gain a clear picture, interested parties have to speak with recycling contacts in each of the provinces, a process in itself confirming the diversity of the Canadian recycling system.
Processing is required to separate glass and other packaging types to meet the end market requirements and to check for and eliminate contaminants.
Marketing is the negotiation between municipalities, or their representative, with the end market to sell the recycled glass.
Beneficiation is carried out by established operations, such as Rosen Continental in Ontario, Rayan in New Brunswick, ETL in B.C. and CVVQ in Quebec. These companies process the recycled glass into furnace ready material - cullet. (Consumers operates one beneficiation facility in Etobicoke, Ontario.)
Glass containers come full circle when Consumers takes cullet, adds virgin raw material, and melts it in the furnace. Figure 1 illustrates the circle of glass, an overview of the life cycle of the glass container manufacturing process.
However, Consumers Glass recognizes that its preference cannot always be met by all programs because the economics or environmental factors can't support the costs of transport and the energy used in returning the glass to its origin. As long as the glass is diverted from landfill, a recycling program can still be successful.
What is common to this diverse system?
There are some elements that are common to all glass recycling programs. The concept of recycling glass containers into new glass containers is universal, whether in Mexico, Australia, Germany or Canada. All glass manufacturers who use recycled glass in their furnaces operate on three basic needs. They want:
In this issue of Glass Works, we are going to provide you with a better understanding of the Canadian recycling system through details on each of Consumers' recycling regions:
