Tools of the trade: wrap glass toolkit offers guidance on setting up glass collection programs with bars, cafes and restaurants.

Even in the face of potentially problematic end markets, glass remains a desirable recyclable commodity for many municipalities, if just for its weight alone. Among the heaviest materials to come through municipal recovery facilities (MRFs), glass can be an essential element to meeting diversion rates, which keeps it on the collection schedule, even if high-value end markets like bottle-to-bottle recycling can be hard to come by in some areas.

As environmental legislation becomes increasingly strict in the European Union, many countries there are exploring ways to increase recycling to meet government demands. To bolster glass collection in the United Kingdom, the Banbury, England-based Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has launched a toolkit designed to help generators establish glass collection programs at licensed retail establishments (LREs).

The "Pub Glass Toolkit" (available for download at WRAP's Web site at www.wrap.org.uk/pubglasstoolkit) is aimed at existing providers of recycling or waste collection services who want to develop glass collection agreements with LREs, which include bars, cards, hotels and restaurants among other establishments that often consume large quantities of products packaged in glass containers, particularly bottles.

Launched in September, the toolkit has been downloaded by 367 people, according to Jenny Hartland, materials project officer for glass and plastics at WRAP. "We are very pleased with the demand so far," she says.

Although it may be several months before any case studies of companies who have put the toolkit to use will be available, WRAP is confident about its effectiveness and is encouraged by the interest the toolkit has generated after just two months of availability.

And while many portions of the toolkit are specific to the industry in the United Kingdom, other sections contain good advice for North American recyclers and collectors who might be interested in similar programs.

COMMON GROUND. Much of the WRAP glass recycling toolkit is devoted to tips and advice on fostering a business relationship with LREs when establishing a glass collection program.

It's this more general advice that WRAP anticipates could be translated to recycling programs outside of the U.K. "You can use certain aspects of the toolkit for guidance in a more general sense," says Hartland. "For example, advice on collections and customer communications would be helpful to people setting up glass recycling services."

Toolkit advice includes how to approach business owners about setting up a glass collection program, noting that LRE owners and managers tend to be very busy and that recycling and waste services might be low on their priority lists. Making them aware of costs to be saved could be crucial.

The toolkit also advises that success is most likely if the recycler considers targeting businesses that generate very high volumes of post-consumer glass, like bars and hotels. The toolkit also suggests targeting LREs that are existing clients. "If you are already offering a trade waste service, those LREs who are already clients are prime targets," according to the WRAP toolkit.

Businesses that have expressed an interest in recycling in the past also make good targets for adding or expanding a glass recycling program.

Common ground includes complications like timing when dealing with LREs, which often have unorthodox business hours. Recognizing the operating hours and business priorities of LREs goes a long way to forming relationships, the toolkit advises.

Certain barriers to getting LREs to participate in a program might be the same in the United Kingdom as in other countries, as well. In its toolkit, WRAP identifies a number of hurdles that exist between recyclers and prospective LRE customers.

First is apathy among some business owners toward recycling. Price, if the collection service is not offered for flee, can be another obstacle, as can lack of space within the LRE.

Another issue all too familiar to North American glass recyclers is that of color separation. "The need to color segregate glass for recycling puts people off," the toolkit states. According to research done in compiling the toolkit, requiring the LRE to color sort its glass reduces the number of premises that are willing to recycle glass by about 60 percent to 80 percent.

When dealing with LREs, the toolkit advises offering a mixed-color collection program as the standard service unless the LRE is open to the suggestion of segregating the glass by color.

In addition to offering a mixed glass collection, the toolkit also touts reliability, frequent collection and ensuring the service costs less than current waste charges as general tips for success in collecting glass from LREs.

Bars, restaurants, hotels and other LREs are rich sources of glass. By forging relationships and collection contracts with these businesses, WRAP hopes recyclers can increase the amount of glass captured and diverted from the waste stream.

The toolkit, while specifically designed for the United Kingdom, contains plenty of advice that recyclers should find useful in North American markets, as well.

The author is assistant editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at [e-mail].