Leading glass manufacturer Beatson Clark has invested £840,000 in a new recycling plant.

The company, which makes glass bottles and jars for the food, drink and pharmaceutical sectors, holds the contract to manage Rotherham’s recycling collections.

Its recycling plant on Greasborough Road in the town receives 6,240 tonnes of mixed material from the council every year, of which 4,734 tonnes is glass.

Beatson Clark installed a new automated recycling system in October which will make recycling much faster and allow it to process more cullet (waste glass) for its furnaces.

The new plant processes six tonnes of materials per hour – almost twice the three and a half tonnes that Beatson Clark could process previously.

Sorting was done manually but the new system has an optical sorting machine which uses light and cameras to sort glass of different colours and identify ceramics, stones and porcelain which can cause defects in the glass and damage the furnace if they’re not removed.

An over belt magnet and eddy current sorter will also pull out any metals from the glass and an automatic baler will bale the metals..

“Sourcing the right quantity of glass cullet can be difficult at times so our new, improved recycling plant will help to prevent us running short,” said Colin Saysell, Supply Chain Manager at Beatson Clark.

“Residents can help us too by only putting glass bottles and jars, metal cans and lids, and textiles and footwear in the blue box. They should not put Pyrex or pottery in as this won’t melt in our furnaces and can even cause damage and rejected bottles, wasting both glass and energy.”

“The improvements will also help us to reduce our carbon footprint as the recycled material only has to travel a few metres from the plant to the furnace rather than being brought in from a recycling processor several miles away.”

All the glass recycled at Beatson Clark is used to make new bottles and jars, while the textiles, steel and aluminium are removed and sent on for further processing to our recycling partners.

Rotherham residents can order a new blue box or blue bag by calling 01709 336003 or by ordering online on at www.rotherham.gov.uk/bins.

Notes to editors

• Beatson Clark specialises in providing glass packaging solutions for niche brands in the food, drink and pharmaceutical markets worldwide. The key to its success has been flexibility, innovation and the high quality of its containers.
• Beatson Clark’s customers are at the core of its business and the company is proud of the long-standing partnerships it has developed thanks to the outstanding level of service it offers.
• Beatson Clark has a turnover of £46 million and a production capacity of approximately 510 million units or 142,000 tonnes.
• It has ISO 9001:2000, BRC/IOP Food Packaging Hygiene Standard and OHSAS 18001:1999 Occupational Health & Safety Standard and its manufacturing capability has an emphasis on flexibility to facilitate short tailored production runs. It has a UK distribution centre located in Rotherham.
• Residents in Rotherham recycle 22,638 tonnes of household waste per year. This figure includes blue box and blue bag material, green bin collection (garden waste) and material recycled at the four household waste recycling centres and over 41 recycling points across the borough.

ENDS

For media information contact:
Jez Ashberry
Shooting Star
01522 528540
07780 735071
jez@weareshootingstar.co.uk
@jezashberry
[beatsonclark63recycling]