Council glass bin offer under Visy plan to lift remanufacturing

Visy Industries plans to offer local councils an extra glass recycling bin to help it increase national glass recycling rates.

Visy’s executive chairman, Antony Pratt, pictured, said the company would invest $2 billion in Australian manufacturing over the next 10 years.

“It’ll be spent increasing the recycled content of glass bottles from 30 percent to 70 percent, including offering councils a glass recycling bin,” he said.

“It will also be reducing landfills by building another clean energy plant in Victoria that runs on paper mill rejects, converting a Brisbane paper mill to run on paper mill projects that were previously going to landfill …  and doubling our one hundred percent recycled plastics factory in NSW.

“These initiatives will not only reduce landfills but also increase the recycled content of our customer’s packaging,” Mr Pratt said

He was speaking at the opening last week of a new glass bottle and jar plant in Penrith, west of Sydney, which Prime Minister Scott Morrison also attended.

Mr Pratt said the investment made good business sense as customers wanted recycled packaging materials, and when the right processes were adopted the company could drive down its own emissions and save on material and energy costs.

To increase its glass recycling efforts, Mr Pratt said Visy needs access to glass that is better separated from paper and plastic at the point of collection.

Between this year and 2027, Victorian councils will begin issuing households with a separate glass bin to prevent broken glass from mingling with paper, aluminium, and plastic and contaminating all the material.