US recycler Strategic Materials has closed its Franklin, Mass. facility as a result of the closure of a nearby Ardagh container glass plant.
Ardagh shut its Milford, Mass. container glass manufacturing facility in March.
As a result it put the Strategic facility in jeopardy as it had been built specifically to meet the needs of the bottlemaker’s site.
The Strategic site had an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes and sourced material from recycling programmes from the region. It closed on June 22.
Its site removed contamination from glass streams and sorted the material by colour, creating cullet for end users.
The clousure of the Franklin site also led to the curtailment of its Rhode island facility, which was a feeder site to Franklin. A total of 20 employees were effected by the closure.
The Ardagh site closed as a result of the continued decline of the US mass beer market it said. It average recycled cullet use was about 75 to 95% compared to 20 to 30% in other plants.
Strategic Materials said it was still accepting deposit glass at its S Windsor, CT facility, and it would continue to prioritise deposit glass.
It said: "We are aggressively working to move the material in Franklin and Rhode Island to other applications and other regions.
"We are working on a few possible solutions, but do not have anything we can share at this time."
