recycled glass and rail freight

[72C]

Hi
Can anybody tell me if re-cycled glass is transported by rail. It seems the ideal consignment, heavy and bulky and transported from all over the country to the processing plants. A modern day coal.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Hi
Can anybody tell me if re-cycled glass is transported by rail. It seems the ideal consignment, heavy and bulky and transported from all over the country to the processing plants. A modern day coal.

If i had any power i would push for it so.... very interested to see if it does.

To add to this, what is the potential for combinig railfreight and recyling as carbon cutting combo!

 

[David]

It all depends on how much glass there is to recycle ....

Several years ago, I worked at a recycling facility at Caenby Corner. While we recieved all the paper, cardboard, glass, etc from the entire West Lindsey District, we only recycled enough glass for 1 lorry load every 2 to 3 days. (The glass was smashed up by the machinery though, so it was a lot less bulky then just having empty bottles.)

 

[route:oxford]

Perhaps it would be easier if there were a UK wide standard for recycling.

Here in Oxford I have 4 bins...

Small Greed Pod - Kitchen waste for bio-enzyme digestion
Skinny Brown Wheelie - Garden waste (Paid for)
Skinny Blue Wheelie - All clean recycleable waste to include paper, glass, cardboard, plastic, aerosols, tetrapak, metals.
Skinny Green Wheelie - Landfill

I don't use the Green Pod as I have practically no kitchen waste. But as for the rest - it's so damned easy to recycle!

If the whole country followed the same scheme - there'd be far few bins and I suspect a far great volume of recycling.

The greater the volume, the greater the likelihood that the rail network would be used to shift the recycleable materials around the country.

 

[lyesbkz]

Here in Oxford I have 4 bins...

Small Greed Pod - Kitchen waste for bio-enzyme digestion
Skinny Brown Wheelie - Garden waste (Paid for)
Skinny Blue Wheelie - All clean recycleable waste to include paper, glass, cardboard, plastic, aerosols, tetrapak, metals.
Skinny Green Wheelie - Landfill

...

If the whole country followed the same scheme - there'd be far few bins and I suspect a far great volume of recycling.

I don't understand why they insist on using different bin colours in every county. It's incredibly confusing and annoying. Now these are the same bin colours and uses that we have here in Northumberland (minus the green pod)! So perhaps we're onto something, now just need the rest of the country to catch up.

Although I must admit I've never understood the colours, surely green for garden waste and brown for landfill would've made a lot more sense.

 

[9K43]

We take sand trains into Cudworth Glass Factory, Barnsley on a regular basis and have done for many years.
In all that time I have never seen broken glass go into this location.
The load is normally 28 trucks full of sand, which comes from the Peterboro area

 

[TicketMan]

I don't understand why they insist on using different bin colours in every county. It's incredibly confusing and annoying. Now

Don't see why it should confuse anyone, unless you regularly move from county to county :-?

In Birmingham we have a big plastic box for paper, and another big box for recycleables - bottles, jars, tin cans etc. Anything else goes in black binbags.

 

[Wyvern]

There dont seem to be anything like as many glass bottles nowadays - they are all plastic. Probably saves on transport costs for the initial product from the food/drink factory.

 

[The Crab]

A lot of the glass collected to be "recycled" is actually smashed up and used for roadbuilding material etc rather than being re-used as glass.

 

[Eng274]

Its common for old building materials, like old concrete, stones etc to be broken down and used as concrete aggregate. glass might also come under that banner.

In Edinburgh we have a green bin for general refuse, brown bin for garden waste, red tub for cardboard and plastic, blue tub for glass and tins, blue bag for paper, and a textile bag for textiles. Thankfully I live in a flat, so there are large coloured bins on the street for disposing of all the above materials rather than cluttering up the pavement!

One thing about glass I've never understood is; the companies that collect the glass have different colour banks for white, green and brown, yet empty them all into one big un-divided lorry! Not wasting precious time sectioning the colours again

 

[IanXC]

One thing about glass I've never understood is; the companies that collect the glass have different colour banks for white, green and brown, yet empty them all into one big un-divided lorry! Not wasting precious time sectioning the colours again

Someone from our council told me this is because in principle its preferable, if you're recycling glass into new glass, to have the colours separated. However as they're just using it for roadbuilding and such at the moment it really doesn't matter if they mix it up when its collected. Its just about conditioning the public for a future possibility.