Glass waste collected by Lyco is one hundred percent recycled and this is how we do it…

Pop your glass waste into a Lyco glass only bin -no need to separate colours, we’ll do that for you!

The Lyco team will come and empty your glass bins on the day(s) that best suit your business needs – easy peasy!

Now for the really clever bit…

Processing – once collected, your glass is taken to a state of the art plant ready to be turned back into jars and bottle, here’s how!…

 Raw cullet (glass) is fed into reception hopper > as the glass moves through the plant on a conveyor belt, an overhead magnet removes metal> Material is then screened into 3 fractions pre organic removal

(The Organic Separator ORSE is used in the glass recycling industry. This separator is able to separate light-weight contaminations e.g. plastic caps, paper etc. from crushed cullet(broken glass). It is used for pre-sorting and purifies the infeed material for glass separation.)

1) Sub 12mm organic material removed with Orse separator

2) Sub 30mm organic material removed with Orse separator

3) Plus 30mm organic material removed with Orse separator

> Plus 30mm material hand picked

> Plus 30mm material roller crushed to aid processing

> Overhead magnet removes further metal from sub 30mm material

All material is then de-labelled > All material is dried and de-dusted > Material is screened to remove fine fractions below 3mm

Eddy current used to remove aluminium (An eddy current separator (ECS) is a machine that uses a powerful magnetic field to separate non-ferrous metals from an input waste or ore stream. The device makes use of eddy currents to effect the separation. Non-ferrous metals typically separated by an ECS include aluminum, copper and die-cast metals)

Material is then screened to remove fines, separated into two fractions pre processing

x1 spectrum unit remove amber from the material stream, it is then crushed to size

2x K9 processors remove ceramic, porcelain, stone, metals and heat resistant glass

2 xK9 processors remove green cullet from the material stream, it is then crushed to size

2 xK9 processors remove flint (clear glass) from the material stream, it is then crushed to size

*** for each stage of separation a second unit is used to enhance colour purity, reduce contamination & reduce glass loss. The recovered glass is returned to the start of the process for secondary stage screening

Now… we have the good stuff! You have your pure green glass, your clear glass (flint) and your amber –  a raw material

The raw material in then heated into liquid glass > the liquid glass is then moulded into bottle and jars – 

It takes 40% more energy to make glass from scratch compared to recycling it. Recycled glass melts at a much lower temperature than virgin glass.

Research shows that recycling a glass bottle can save enough energy to light a normal light bulb for 4 hours!

 

 

Glass produced from recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20% and related water pollution by 50%!

Glass does not loose quality no matter how many times it is recycled.  So the same jars and bottles can be recycled over and over again to the same high production standards.

 

 

glass bottles and jars are now ready to be filled and distributed to supermarkets, bars, restaurants and hotels…

once used… pop your glass into a Lyco glass bin and we’ll start the process all over again!