The pioneering post-consumer glass recycling scheme developed by leading integral blinds manufacturer Morley Glass in conjunction with Saint-Gobain Glass has now saved enough energy to power over 1,000 average-sized homes for a year.
In the space of just three years, the initiative has diverted more than 1,800 tonnes or almost 3,000 cubic metres of glass away from landfill through the collection of end-of-life IGUs (insulating glass units) collected by Morley Glass from its customers. These IGUs are then crushed by Morley Glass to generate cullet (crushed glass) which Saint-Gobain uses as a high-quality raw material for the manufacture of new building glass.
The resulting savings in terms of energy use, due to the fact that using cullet instead of virgin raw materials in glass manufacturing is less energy intensive, equate to 1,064 ‘energy years’ – an energy year being the amount of energy required to power a typical UK home for 12 months. This is based on modelling which shows that one tonne of cullet saves an amount of energy similar to what a household would use in six months.
Energy savings, however, are just one of the benefits of the initiative which Morley Glass and Saint-Gobain co-developed in 2021, and today provides a model for other fabricators and installers in the UK window industry to adopt. To date, the scheme has also prevented around 1,400 tonnes of CO2 being emitted during the glass manufacturing process, and reduced the amount of sand – the main virgin raw material for glass – needed by 2,391 tonnes.
Ian Short, managing director of Morley Glass commented: “Most of us will appreciate how recycling materials such as glass reduces the demand for the planet’s resources, such as sand, but the energy savings achievable through recycling IGUs are perhaps less well-known. When cullet is used in place of virgin raw materials like sand, less energy is needed to operate the furnace and this has enabled Saint-Gobain to develop a formula to show how much is saved when you use more cullet.
“Breaking through the 1,000 ‘energy years’ mark is an amazing achievement after just three years and hopefully this will encourage more installers to get involved with our glass recycling initiative. We offer a free collection service for end-of-life IGUs if we are delivering new orders of our Uni-Blinds® integral blinds, or if an installer is based in the Leeds area, which means installers can save money on their general waste disposal costs too.”
The glass recycling initiative is also the only one of its kind to fund environmental and social improvement projects. The high quality of the cullet produced by Morley Glass generates revenue which all goes into a fund called GreenVision.
This enables Morley Glass to provide grants to charities, groups and individuals who are dedicated to improving their local communities. So far, over 170 grants have been awarded to support good causes including school vegetable growing projects, village in bloom groups and an initiative in Leeds which repairs and renovates unwanted bikes to donate back to the community.
