Irish Glass Recycling, a new company specialising in recycling and developing new uses for recycled glass, has just opened its first plant at Dock Road in Limerick, with no subsidy from the State.
Mr Malachy Quinn, the company's chief executive, said the opening was timely given that glass waste had been banned from landfill since March 1st under new regulations made by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen.
"What this means is that all businesses, large organisations and eventually households will have to segregate their waste, separating glass and other recyclable materials, and ensure it is being handled by an approved waste recycling agent/collector."
Mr Quinn said his Limerick plant, which has a capacity of 30,000 tonnes a year, will handle sheet glass from windows, car windscreens and other non-container glass, turning it into sand for use in shot-blasting, water filtration and decorative glass.
Since the closure last year of the Irish Glass Bottle plant in Ringsend, Dublin, most of the glass bottles recycled in the State are going to the Quinn Glass plant at Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, where the cullet (crushed glass) is processed into new bottles.
This export trade is subsidised by Repak, the industry compliance body, which is working towards achieving a recycling target of 50 per cent of all packaging waste in 2005, as required by an EU directive. It has already reached a rate of 25 per cent.
The Irish Glass Recycling plant in Limerick does not qualify for Repak subsidies because it is not recycling packaging waste (bottles). Instead, it is engaged in the "recovery" of other glass products for transformation into new materials such as sand.
Mr Quinn said his operation, which is for the export trade, is not encouraged by the Department of the Environment even though it diverts glass waste from landfill. "Their agenda is very narrow, and most of the grants go to local authorities," he said.
A spokesman for Repak said its remit was to concentrate exclusively on packaging waste and, in the case of glass bottles, to aid recycling rather than "recovery", although it had grant-aided the use of glass for roadfill in Co Monaghan on a trial basis.
