Pubs, clubs, hotels etc.

The Silipaktor™ has been designed specifically for the hospitality and leisure industries and enables meaningful cost savings to be made for premises generating significant volumes of waste glass. Benefits of the system include:

Waste management companies

Until now, there has not been a satisfactory way to collect waste glass in relatively significant quantities from individual premises. The Silipaktor™ crushes waste glass bottles into unique, steel, 220-litre wheeled bins which can hold nearly 300kgs of cullet and which are also easily lifted and emptied by standard hydraulic equipment. No special vehicles or adaptations are necessary.

There are major cost incentives to waste management companies from collecting bottles and glass containers that have been pre-crushed at source: -

Darin Tudor, Group Sales & Marketing Director of Trio Sales Ltd., estimates that such vehicles will be nearly 20% cheaper than current standard, lower capacity lorries.

The efficiencies to be gained by waste management companies in terms of operating costs per tonne are substantial. For example, if vehicle weekly running costs of between £1,000 and £1,500 are assumed and collection rates of 35/40 tonnes per vehicle are achieved, compare the resultant cost per tonne in the table below with those of a potential collection rate of 84 tonnes of pre-crushed glass per week in lower profile vehicles: -

To the financial benefits must be added the logistical advantages as the following very simplified example demonstrates.

Assume a lorry has a maximum payload of ten tonnes: -
- If it picks up FOUR x 660-litre bins of uncrushed waste glass containers at each stop, it would have to visit 18 premises to reach payload.
- If, on the other hand, it picks up FOUR x 220-litre Silipaktor™ bins of crushed waste glass at each stop, it would have to visit only NINE premises to reach payload.

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Valpak, the country's largest compliance scheme, is currently collecting the waste glass crushed by Silipaktors™ at such premises as Claridges, Grosvenor House and The Ritz, as part of its free recycle-more-glass scheme. Rosalind Dorning, Market Development Manager, says: "Although it is early days, after collecting crushed glass for four months in reasonably meaningful quantities, we've seen there are benefits for the waste management companies and the general environment."

Chris Emmerson, Regional General Manager, London and South East for Cleanaway says: "In my opinion, collecting waste glass pre-crushed at source is the best, most cost-efficient long term solution - and I know that many others in the industry share my view."

Andy Dawe, Materials Sector Manager (Glass) of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), says: "One of WRAP's goals set out in its business plan is to secure an extra 350,000 tonnes of glass a year from all sources and 100,000 tonnes from commercial premises. In order to achieve this, an efficient, cost-effective collection process is necessary. Innovations of this nature are fundamental in helping to achieve increased recycling rates."

The environment

The environmental benefits of the Silipaktor™ include: