The glass industry is committed to a decarbonising action plan, as part of the Government commitment of zero CO2 emissions by 2050. 

The extensive use of recycled glass has already taken us a long way towards that end.

More glass still needs to be recycled however, (UK recycle 67% versus about 90% for best European practice) and Nick Kirk, Technical Director at British Glass will be looking at further ways of achieving this at the Sand to Splendour raw materials conference in Cambridge, UK in September.

Besides more cullet, other possible raw materials sources, such as wood ash, which could replace soda ash (a big contributor of CO2 to the glass batch) and Rob Ireson of British Glass will be informing us of recent work done in this area. There will also be other contributions on this topic from Wei Deng and Daniel Backhouse, both from Sheffield Hallam University in the Science Sector of the conference.

Sven Roger Kahl of Ardagh Glass will also be suggesting other potential materials we may look at, such as by products from other industrial processes, including slags other than Calumite. Professor Chris Rayner of C Capture will describe the CO2 stripping process currently being carried out at Drax Power station near Selby which should then remove any remaining CO2 contributions from batch materials or combustion processes.