A lot of bottle: A small-scale glass recycling plant in Stornaway produces higher value products than traditional road aggregate and bottle-making glass

摘要

The remote Isle of Lewis, in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, seems an unlikely place for technological innovation, but the island's capital of Stornoway is the site of an unusual glass-recycling operation. The plant is novel in that it economically converts a relatively small volume of waste bottles and jars into a variety of products, some of them quite valuable. Owned and operated by the Western Isles Council, the plant started up in April 2004 and has a nominal throughput of about 2 tonnes/hour. In contrast, conventional recycling plants may process up to 30 tonnes/hour, according to Howard Graham, president of Technical Engineering Services (UK), which provided the equipment and built the Lewis plant. These plants, he explains, are typically located in heavily populated areas and waste containers often have to be transported long distances, typically to remelt plants, which is costly.