Two out of three glass containers, or 626 million bottles a year are recycled in New Zealand.
The country’s Glass Packaging Forum said 66.4% of glass was recycled either into new glass containers or used in other applications for the year ended March 31, 2012.
John Webber, General Manager of the forum, told its Annual General Meeting that about 242,300 tonnes of glass containers were consumed, equivalent to around 945 million bottles or jars.
He said the recycled figure did not include a significant amount of glass collected, which is being held for future use as aggregate.
He said: “As glass recovery increases, it is important that we retain our focus on increasing the amount of glass recycled into high value reuses and this has increased by 15% over last year reflecting a major contribution by glass manufacturer OI-NZ.”
He added that the industry pays a voluntary levy of $3.90 per tonne, which raised $704,215 to support glass recycling initiatives.
