Knauf Insulation and Veolia Open Glass Recycling Facility in St. Helens, UK

Knauf Insulation and Veolia have opened a new glass recycling facility in St. Helens, UK, which uses cutting-edge technology to sort and separate glass at a micro-level. The machinery at work includes vibrating screens for size sorting, magnets to extract ferrous materials and eddy current separators for non-ferrous materials.

“We have been using recycled glass in our manufacturing process for some time already. As well as securing our glass supply, the quality and consistency that we are getting now from the new facility will enable us to increase further the percentage of glass cullet we use in the manufacture of our Glass Mineral Wool insulation solutions, taking us one step further in our sustainability journey,” said John Sinfield, managing director at Knauf Insulation, in a statement.

The facility, which will collect the equivalent of 350 million bottles of glass each year, represents a £10 million investment for Knauf Insulation.

“We want to see this first-of-its-kind partnership pave the way for others; where waste is seen as an indispensable commodity and given a completely new lease of life. It would be fantastic to see more key industry players follow Knauf Insulation and incorporate circular economy thinking into production,” said Estelle Brachlianoff, senior executive vice president at Veolia UK and Ireland, in a statement.