Recycling Service-香港玻璃再生有限公司

Introduction of Glass Bottles

Glass materials are widely used in the production of beverage containers because they are non-toxic, odorless, beautiful, low in price and abundant. Moreover, the glass containers can be reused for many times, and can even be “reborn” as new glass containers.

Excellent Physical Properties: Glass container is airtight, stable and hygienic. It also has good insulation property and excellent corrosion, heat, pressure and washing resistances, even under high temperature sterilization and low temperature storage. Therefore, it is the preferred container for beverages such as beer, juice and alcoholic drinks.

Convenient Packaging and Production: Since the development of automatic filling technology and equipment using glass containers is mature, beverages packaged in glass containers are very suitable for commercialization and mass production, and are widely accepted by the public.

Government’s Data on Waste Glass

According to report of “Monitoring of Solid Waste in Hong Kong 2016” issued by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), more than 329 tonnes of waste glass materials are disposed of at landfills every day, of which 243 tonnes or 74% are waste glass bottles.

Composition of MSW disposed of at landfills in 2016 - By major waste type
Composition	Average daily quantity (tonne per day) and percentage shares by weight
	Domestic waste (a)	Commercial & industrial waste (b)	Municipal solid waste (c) = (a) + (b)
Glass - Glass Bottles - Other Glass (Glass) Sub-Total	157 37 193	86 49 136	243 86 329

Recyclables recovered from MSW in 2016 - By type of recyclable
Recyclable type	Quantity of recovered recyclables (thousand tonnes)
	Exported for recycling (a)	Recycled locally (b)	Total recovered for recycling (c)=(a)+(b)
Glass(1)	0.1 (0.0%)	9.2 (16.4%)	9.3 (0.5%)
Note： (1) Glass beverage bottles recovered for reuse through deposit-and-refund system operated by local beverage manufacturers are not included.

In contrast, in 2016, only 9,300 tonnes of glass materials were collected and recycled, accounting for only 7.7% of waste glass materials disposed of at landfills. This figure indicates that there is still room for improvement in glass recycling.

Quantities and values of exported recyclable materials recovered from MSW in 2016 - By major type of recyclable material
Recyclable type	Quantity (tonnes)	Value ($ thousand)	Value per unit ($ / tonne)
(Glass) Sub-total	148	177	1,195

In 2016, only 148 tonnes of glass materials were exported for recycling. This indicates that the practice of exporting glass materials for manufacturing of new glass products is still immature.

Hong Kong Glass Reborn Limited

Hong Kong's used glass containers will eventually be transported to landfills if they are not effectively collected, processed and recycled into valuable products. Glass containers cannot decompose naturally and will occupy more space than other garbage, hence reduce the lifespan of landfills. In order to achieve the environmental goals of waste reduction and resource recovery, in April 2018, the EPD has appointed Hong Kong Glass Reborn Limited as the Glass Management Contractor for Kowloon region, who will be responsible for promoting glass containers recycling and all related services.

Service Coverage:

The entire Kowloon region including:
• Yau Tsim Mong
• Sham Shui Po
• Kowloon City
• Wong Tai Sin
• Kwun Tong

Service Targets:

• Government, Institution, or Community Facilities
• Bars and Restaurants
• Industrial and Commercial Premises
• Shopping Malls
• Residential Estates and Buildings
• Schools
• Hotels
• Other Premises that generate Waste Glass Containers

Scope of Service：

• Provide the best glass containers recycling services to the participants
• Establish an extensive network of collection points
• Provide glass containers collection bins or PP woven bags for collection
• Provide regular collection services supplemented with ad-hoc collection services on request basis
• Operate a glass containers processing facility to properly treat the collected glass containers
• Implement “glass reborn” to produce valuable glass materials or products
• Operate a public participation incentive scheme to educate the citizens and participants the correct steps to recycle glass containers, and encourage them to participate in glass containers recycling

Glass Containers Processing Facility：

Location: Yuen Long
Size: 41,000 square feet
Processing Procedure:
1. Record the total weight of the collected waste glass bottles by the weighbridge.
2. Discharge the waste glass bottles into the production line by the automatic bin tipping device.
3. Sort out any non-glass materials, including domestic waste, paper, metal, plastic, liquid, etc.
4. Remove any contaminated glass containers, including those with large amount of sauce, sundries and liquids.
5. Divert non-standard size and broken glass containers into the glass crushing system to remove stickers, caps, impurities and etc. and produce glass sand.

Processing Capacity

Glass Sand Storage Capacity: 2,000 tonnes
Glass Cullet Storage Capacity 300 tonnes
Temporary Glass Container Storage Capacity: 200 tonnes
Daily Processing Capacity 100 tonnes/(8 hours)

Glass Containers Processing System

Our company has spent large amount of investment and continuous Research & Development works in seeking the best glass containers processing system which is suitable for Hong Kong. After repeated testing for two years and processed more than 4,000 tonnes of glass containers, we finally established a glass containers processing system designed by local engineers. This is not only a milestone for the local glass containers recycling industry, but also the system could be adopted by other cities in China and Southeast Asia to facilitate glass containers recycling worldwide.

Production Requirement

• Separate and process glass containers into cullet of 4 colors for “reborn” of glass containers overseas
• Process glass containers into qualified glass sand that can be used as construction materials instead of river sand
• Recycle 100% of waste glass containers collected

System Requirement

• High stability to avoid malfunctions
• High efficiency and low wear and tear to minimize operation and maintenance costs
• Easy to carry out maintenance works
• High degree of automation with a centralized control system which is able to record production data
• Safe operation, low noise level, low dust level and low wastewater generation
• Comfortable working environment which meets occupational safety requirements

Environmental Improvement in System

• Washing of glass containers collection bins – Automated tipping and washing of bins which are safe, clean and reliable
• Wastewater – All wastewater will be diverted to the underground tanks for filtration, purification and reuse, and any excess waste / wastewater will be collected by professional collector
• Water Saving - Use high pressure water jet and sprayer in production line
• Rainwater Collection - Collection of rainwater from roof for factory floor cleaning, dust suppression and temperature reduction
• Planting trees around the factory to provide a better working environment

Happy Glass Garden

The facility offers guided tours for organizations and institutions to provide the public with knowledge of glass bottle recycling and treatment. To apply for a visit to Happy Glass Garden, please click here.

The maximum number of visitors per tour is 30 persons and the tour will last for about 1 hour.
• Understand the current situation of glass recycling in Hong Kong, our company’s philosophy, the difficulties encountered and the results achieved
• Visit facility operation
• Visit the glass containers museum which has a variety of representative glass items, and the public can take away the reusable glass container as souvenir
• Waste glass containers recycling workshop*
(* The content of the workshop and whether it will be held or not, is subject to the arrangement of the tutor and the number of visitors.)

The facility has a 24-hour security monitoring system connected to a cloud server to enhance the transparency of the facility and maintain a tight security management.

環境保護署玻璃管理承辦商

EPD Glass Management Contractor