Campaign to keep rubbish out of glass collection

04 September 2018

A campaign has been launched to reduce the amount of rubbish found in the glass delivered for recycling at La Collette by 80%.

Jersey’s waste glass recycling process is currently unsustainable because of the volume of plastic bags and plastic labels, broken crockery, cardboard, and lightbulbs that islanders are throwing in with their glass.

The Just Glass campaign aims to improve the quality of the waste glass delivered to La Collette by educating islanders and enabling parishes and glass collection firms to reject waste that is too contaminated.

Every household in Jersey will receive a leaflet explaining what can and can’t go in their glass bin; extra guidance will be posted on communal bottle banks; and social media will be used to show what happens to waste glass.

Parishes and companies collecting glass are being encouraged to work with their customers before stricter controls are introduced at the glass reception site. From November, deliveries to La Collette will be rejected if they contain an unacceptable amount of material that is not glass. The glass collection firms are being given tags which they can attach to household glass bins that are too contaminated, explaining why collection was refused.

Recycling Manager, Emma Richardson-Calladine, said: “We have a great opportunity to use recycled glass instead of buying aggregate material to filter and control the water flow to our reclaimed land, and to use it in a range of other ecologically-friendly ways, but only if islanders use their glass bins just for glass.

“At the moment glass is mixed with plastic bags and general rubbish. The glass is sorted and cleaned but the process is not sustainable. Glass cannot be thrown away with general rubbish because it causes huge mechanical issues in the Energy from Waste plant, so it has to be separated for recycling, and our message is that just glass should go into the glass bin.”

The Just Glass campaign also aims to raise awareness about what happens to the glass once it’s put in a glass collection bin. An animation has been produced to show the process of waste bottles and jars being turned into building material that is essential to the construction of the reclamation site. The animation is available from the Rethink your Waste Jersey Facebook page.

More information about parish glass collections is available from each Parish Hall and recycling information is available online