Rehab Glassco has been named as 'Repak Recovery Operator of the Year 2010' in the large company category at the 9th annual Repak Recycling Awards which took place yesterday (7th October). The awards, which were presented by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley TD, and Dr. Andrew Hetherington, CEO of Repak, acknowledges best practice in packaging recycling and waste minimisation from around the country. Other finalists in the category were Thorntons Recycling and Panda Waste.

The award marks a huge achievement for Rehab Glassco which was formed in December 2009, following the merger of Rehab Recycle's glass recycling division and Glassco, a glass recycling facility in Co. Kildare.

With over 1,800 bring centres nationwide, Rehab Glassco is Ireland's largest glass recycler and processes nearly 80 per cent of used glass containers in the country. During the first eight months of this year, over 131 million bottles and jars from Irish households were recycled by Rehab Glassco - enough bottles and jars to fill 63 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Commenting on the award, Zeki Mustafa, Managing Director of Rehab Glassco, said: "We're delighted to the receive the Repak large 'Recovery Operator of the Year' award, which comes less than a year after Rehab Glassco was formed. It's a tremendous achievement for our company and a reflection of the hard work and dedication of our employees.

It's been a busy year so far for Rehab Glassco and the company continues to grow from strength to strength with plans to introduce a number of exciting initiatives in the coming months. These include a doubling of capacity at our Kildare processing plant, additional bring sites nationwide and live vehicle tracking of our entire fleet. Such initiatives will ensure that Rehab Glassco continues to lead the way in glass recycling in Ireland and remains at the forefront of developments within the sector in Europe.

"Over the past decade, the levels of glass recycling in the country have trebled and Ireland is now firmly placed within the top ten of countries in the European glass recycling league table. However, there is still plenty of room to improve and with Rehab Glassco bottle banks located in 25 local authority areas nationwide, we are calling on members of the public to support us and help the environment by taking used bottles and jars to their local Rehab Glassco bottle bank."