Dr Steve Cinderby Archives

Could a national glass bottle return and refill scheme work in the UK? An industry perspective

Could a national glass bottle return and refill scheme work in the UK? An industry perspective

In 2019, the UK recovered 71% of single-use glass by mass, but only around 36% was used to make new container glass. This low circular rate is partly because the UK has a mixed collection system which requires the glass to be sorted into different colours before remelting and results in less cullet (waste glass for remelting) returned than in separated colour collection. Much of the glass is therefore used in aggregates for roads, resulting in nearly 50% of potential cullet not being used for new container glass bottles. The international nature of glass production and trade also means a large percentage of the bottles manufactured in the UK, particularly clear bottles, are exported for recycling, resulting in a loss of materials over which the industry has control. These and other challenges to circular-loop recycling of container glass raise the question of why there are not large-scale national refill [...]

Joanna Johnson2024-04-29T14:46:58+00:00May 12th, 2023|

Lessons learned from differing priorities for stakeholders

TransFIRe User Journey Method Pilot Study: Lessons learned from differing priorities for stakeholders J McKendree & S Cinderby Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York Summary TransFIRe Workstream 3 (WS3) explores collaborations between Foundation Industries (FIs) and nearby communities. User Journey methods are useful for exploring expectations, challenges and potential solutions in such partnerships. A workshop was planned to pilot a User Journey with an example FI, local businesses and community organisations concerned with skills promotion and net zero goals. Community organisations were more likely to show interest than the FI companies or local small businesses. Finding the appropriate contact for community engagement in industry was difficult. Many FIs have limited time for external engagement and prioritise technical actions to increase short term productivity and profitability. TransFIRe could potentially facilitate industry/community connections and collaborations. Conducting individual User Journey interviews remotely may offer a more effective means of exploring opportunities than [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-05-02T12:27:53+00:00February 28th, 2023|

TransFIRe partner collaboration on the tiles

In the summer of last year, a range of teams from across TransFIRe began working with Zentia, a ceiling tile manufacturer in Gateshead, to develop a case study focused on reducing energy usage, capturing and reusing waste heat and exploring the use of additives and alternative product mixtures to improve the material properties of their products. Zentia’s factory produces ceiling tiles formed from a wet mixture of newsprint, starch, fibreglass and other minerals, which are then pressed and dried by passing through a long series of gas-fired ovens. The manufacturing process generates large amounts of steam and hot air and offers significant potential for heat and water recovery projects. Initially brought into the TransFIRe programme by Professor Justin Perry and Dr Matt Unthank, Chemical Technical Working Group members from Northumbria University, to explore the use of alternative tile coatings, the engineering and management team at Zentia also expressed interest [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-02-27T15:04:46+00:00January 30th, 2023|