Orora’s new Glass Beneficiation Plant is located adjacent to our state-of-the-art Glass facility in Gawler, South Australia. The $25m Glass Beneficiation Plant was officially opened in October 2022 by South Australia Deputy Premier, the Hon Susan Close, with the support of the Commonwealth and South Australia government.
What is Glass Beneficiation?
The process of beneficiation involves removing impurities from used or broken glass through crushing, cleaning, and sorting to deliver crushed contaminant-free glass – known as “cullet” – ready to contribute to making new recycled glass products.
Through container deposit schemes, Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant processes the used glass to create cullet, which is then transferred to the Orora Gawler glass plant to be put through the furnaces and created into new glass containers.
The beneficiation process involves removing contaminants from the glass. This includes any residual aluminium caps or closures, which may remain on the bottles. These are separated from the bottles in the beneficiation process and are then bundled up and sent off for recycling separately.
Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant allows us to process up to 150,000 tonnes of glass each year – which is equivalent to approximately 330 million wine bottles or 750 million beer bottles.
Our commitment to Sustainability – Our Promise to the Future
Did you know that glass is infinitely recyclable? This means glass can be recycled over and over again without any loss of quality.
Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant will allow us to access more recycled glass from across Australia, therefore reducing the amount of glass that ends up in landfills. This will allow us to produce more recycled glass, whilst also improving the quality of glass products from having more control over the mix and quality of the cullet. Increasing the recycled content in our glass packaging not only reduces cullet going to landfill, it also reduces our greenhouse gas emissions.
Currently, Orora sources around 80% of South Australia’s available cullet through container deposit schemes, 100% of Western Australia’s available cullet, and additional cullet through other states. Orora’s Glass Beneficiation Plant increases our capability to source even greater volumes of cullet across Australia.
As part of Orora’s Sustainability focus, Orora is committed to achieving 60% recycled content for glass beverage containers (pre and post-consumer) by 2025. Orora has also committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and has an interim goal of a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035*.
We’re pleased to be able to create an even more sustainable product with our investment in this plant to deliver to our customers and propel us further towards achieving these goals.
In South Australia, Orora is provided with electricity under long term power purchase agreements capable of providing of up to 100% of demand through renewable electricity generated by wind power. We also have solar installed at our Gawler glass facility to lower our carbon footprint.
Additionally, Orora intends to implement Oxy-Fuel furnace technology with our next furnace rebuild in 2024, which will move the furnace into the top 10% of energy efficient glass furnaces worldwide and will help Orora deliver a step change in greenhouse gas reduction.
