Re-Gen Waste Ltd has announced signing a £10 million contract that will see the Newry-based waste management solutions company provide all of its collected glass to the Belgian glass recycling specialists High 5 Recycling Group.

This new deal ensures that 95 per cent of glass collected by Re-Gen is processed ‘back to bottle’.

The long-term deal, which guarantees an end market for all glass gathered in the UK and Northern Ireland by Re-Gen Waste Ltd’s commingled waste streams, provides a secure end market for all glass collected as part of the comingled collection.

Joseph Doherty, Managing Director of Re-Gen said: “This new contract means that Re-Gen can continue to offer a glass processing service to all our customers.

“Dealing with glass that is mixed together with other dry recyclable waste is one of the biggest issues facing materials-sorting facilities today. The majority are incapable of recycling glass due to breakage, which ultimately means glass ends up in landfill.

“In its unprocessed form, MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) glass is comprised of small shards of glass mixed with contaminants of paper labels, plastic caps and general dirt, which is of little or no commercial value. Separating recoverable glass from these contaminants and washing it produces a visually cleaner glass product and yields an added value product for resale.”

Re-Gen has recently invested heavily in a state of the art glass screening plant at their headquarters in Newry to improve the screening and cleaning of recycled glass, so rather than send it to landfill they can recover 95 per cent of the glass for recycling. The waste management solutions company is therefore uniquely positioned to accept and sort materials commingled with glass for customers and councils across Northern Ireland and the UK.

Mr Doherty went on to explain: “Having conducted significant research in the sector, we established that High 5 Recycling operates the most technically advanced glass plant in Europe, with the requisite technology to successfully sort unprocessed and contaminated glass. Our decision to work together was an obvious one.”

Alexandre Halbrecq, Director at High 5 Recycling said: “We have been extremely impressed to date with the quality of MRF glass that Re-Gen has supplied to us, no doubt attributable to the significant investment in their on-site, high tech glass screening plant.

“High 5 Recycling has developed a technology to allow the separation of this glass by colour. One of the end products is an added value glass coloured midway between amber and green called ‘dead leaf’. The glass possesses interesting chemical properties of use to industrialists.

“We are the first company to start producing this type of glass and look forward to a successful working relationship with Re-Gen where together we can yield recoverable glass to prevent it reaching landfill which is both wasteful and socially irresponsible,” he added.

Click on the link for more information on High 5 Recycling’s world class glass recycling facility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blN4rH114_E