Saint-Gobain Glass has forged a ground-breaking partnership with VEKA Recycling that represents a major advancement in sustainable construction and post-consumer glass recycling in the UK fenestration industry.
This collaboration addresses one of the sector’s longstanding challenges: the lack of infrastructure to efficiently collect and recycle post-consumer glass from glazing projects. Together with VEKA Recycling – a company with over 30 years of expertise in PVCu recycling – Saint-Gobain is working to close the loop and significantly reduce the amount of valuable glass waste that ends up in landfill.
At the heart of this initiative is the deployment of Saint-Gobain’s patented ICG Recycling Machine, which efficiently separates annealed and toughened glass from spacer bars. The glass can then be processed and reintroduced directly into float glass production. This innovative process enhances resource recovery rates while reducing the need for raw material extraction, lowering energy consumption by 30% and cutting CO2 emissions across the supply chain.
By enabling VEKA Recycling to collect fully glazed frames – without the need for deglazing on-site – the partnership is helping to create a more efficient and cost-effective solution for recycling post-consumer glazing materials. This collaboration is currently focused on a 100-mile radius around VEKA’s Wellingborough facility, which recently underwent a £15 million investment to increase its processing capacity and technological capability.
Michael Butterick, Marketing Director at Saint-Gobain Glass, said: “We are thrilled to be partnering with VEKA Recycling to offer a solution for post-consumer glass recycling. The potential of this initiative is vast – by addressing the current gap in infrastructure and leveraging key partnerships, we can achieve our sustainability goals.”
Tim Taylor, Commercial Director at VEKA plc, said: “This marks a monumental step on our journey towards creating a circular economy within the UK. For the fenestration industry, ensuring that materials can be collected, recycled and then manufactured into new products without needing to leave the country is instrumental in meeting sustainability goals.
“By combining our infrastructure with Saint-Gobain’s innovative glass recycling technology, we are confident that we can overcome current challenges to significantly increase the rate of post-consumer glass recovery in the UK.”
Post-consumer glass recycling is central to Saint-Gobain’s journey to Net Zero CO2 emissions by 2050. While VEKA Recycling is pushing to create a closed-loop system and circular domestic supply chain for the UK fenestration industry.
