Tuesday, 5 October 2009: Over 131 million bottles and jars from Irish households have been recycled by Rehab Glassco in the first eight months of this year – that’s enough bottles and jars to fill 63 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The figures – equivalent to 41,063 tonnes of glass – were revealed in a survey* by Rehab Glassco carried out to mark Repak’s Recycling Week, which takes place from 4 -10 October 2010.

The survey of Rehab Glassco bring sites also shows that, during the period from January to August 2010, the people of Wexford were the top recyclers with deposits of 59 bottles or jars for every man, woman and child in the county. The people of Leitrim and Galway were the next best recyclers with an average of 54 and 53 items of glass recycled per person respectively.

The greatest increase in glass recycling came in North Tipperary, up by 13 per cent to 887 tonnes of glass, closely followed by Laois where figures rose by 12 per cent compared with the same period last year.

The title of Ireland’s busiest Rehab Glassco bring site was won by the site at Tesco in Celbridge, Co. Kildare with 310 tonnes of glass deposited, representing nearly 1 million bottles and jars (992,000). The bring site at Superquinn supermarket in Knocklyon, Co. Dublin was the second busiest site with 297 tonnes of glass deposited. At 291 tonnes, the third busiest site in the country was at Western Distributor road in Galway.

Commenting on Repak Recycling Week, Zeki Mustafa, Managing Director of Rehab Glassco, said: “Over the past 10 years, glass recycling in Ireland has trebled from 40,000 tonnes of glass recycled in 1999, to in excess of 120,000 tonnes last year. That’s the equivalent of almost 400 million bottles and jars and gives Ireland a 74 per cent glass recycling rate for 2009, up from 35 per cent in 1999. This improvement has pushed Ireland up the European glass recycling league table from 14th out of 17 European countries in 1999 to 9th out of 28 in 2009.

“However, there is still plenty of room to improve. We want to be right up at the top of the table alongside our Scandinavian neighbours by collecting and recycling close to 100 per cent of the country’s glass waste within the next decade. We need to ensure that the glass collected is of the highest possible quality, so we ask people not to deposit broken crockery or pyrex in glass bins as it is highly detrimental to the recycling process – for example, even one cup can contaminate a whole truckful of glass. Ireland can also play its part in reducing C02 emissions by ensuring that the maximum environmental benefit is gained from the glass recycling process. This can be achieved by ensuring that all of the glass collected is sent for melting to produce new bottles and jars, something which Rehab Glassco does more than any other recycler in the country.

“In order to achieve its goals, Rehab Glassco is rolling out a number of initiatives in the coming months including a doubling of capacity at its Kildare processing plant, additional bring sites nationwide and live vehicle tracking of our entire fleet. We urge the general public to continue the excellent efforts to date by recycling even more glass in the future.”

Speaking at the launch of Repak Recycling Week, Dr. Andrew Hetherington, CEO of Repak said: “We are all very good at recycling our wine and beer bottles but to get to higher glass recycling rates we also need to be regularly washing out and recycling all our coffee, jam and sauce jars, as well as ensuring that crockery such as broken plates, cups and saucers don’t end up in glass banks. This year we are making a special call on people to bring the good recycling habits they have developed at home into the workplace. By recycling more inside and outside the home we can really make a positive impact on our environment.”