Recresco wins £100m Quinn recycled glass contract

Jane Ellis, packagingnews.co.uk, 13 August 2008

 

Recresco, the glass recycling firm, has signed a £100m 10-year deal with Quinn Glass to supply the bottle manufacturer with glass cullet for reprocessing into new bottles.

 

The Nottinghamshire-based firm will supply Quinn's facility at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire with two million tonnes of used glass, collected from local authority kerbside collection schemes, bottle banks and by commercial operators across the UK.

 

Recresco is currently building a new sorting and processing plant on the site of its own facility at Ellesmere Port that will be able to handle 4,000 tonnes of mixed glass a week.

 

The plant, which is scheduled to open at the end of September, will separate glass according to colour - at least 90% of which will be used to make new glass bottles and containers.

 

Quinn Glass director Adrian Curry said: "This contract not only provides considerable benefit to both Quinn Glass and Recresco, but also does much to sustain the long-term demand for recycled glass."

 

Quinn Glass is still awaiting planning permission for its plant, more than 18 months after the government refused the previous application.

 

The plant's annual production is estimated at 1.2 billion containers, and it also has a bottling facility capable of processing 400 bottles of wine, or 1,000 bottles of beer, per minute.

 

Construction began at the former power station in 2003, on the basis of planning permission for a smaller factory, while the company applied to build a larger operation.