The Forum is a prime example of a voluntary product stewardship initiative and is operating successfully without requirement for legislation.
Its origin was in the Glass Users Group, which was set up in 2005. That group had already provided over $1 million to assist Recycling Operators with the recovery of glass.
With around 5% more glass packaging recovered from homes year on year, New Zealand needs to find additional sustainable alternative recycling uses for its glass. To finance research and development into these alternatives, the Glass Packaging Forum, has established a voluntary levy on all those making, using or selling glass containers in New Zealand.
The Forum is keen to help councils find more local solutions for surplus recovered glass. Already there has been the modification of specifications by Transit New Zealand, which allow for the use of up to 5% glass cullet in the base course for roads. Separate trials in Nelson and Palmerston North have been assessed covering different methods of crushing glass into an aggregate mix. This has the advantage of using glass in local infrastructure projects and reduces the need to separate the material by colour. Already glass has been successfully used in hard stand areas, paths, cycle tracks and trial areas of roads.
To assist in these opportunities mobile crushing facilities have been introduced as well as the development of small local crushers in specific areas.
Research is being undertaken to assess alternative means of collection in order to provide the best quality material for subsequent use.
Trials are underway with the New Zealand Turf Institute to assess glass as a material for ‘coring’ on golf courses and the use of glass as a mulch in the wine industry.
Work continues with the development of glass as a blasting medium which is already established commercially and as a filtration material.
Investigations continue into the opportunities of glass as an aggregate in the manufacture concrete and its use in the production of decorative tiles and bricks.
It is now a year since the Forum was created to address the critical issues of market opportunities and price for waste consumer glass. In essence those parties collecting glass, be they contractors or councils were, up until the end of 2004, able to sell all the material to New Zealand’s only container manufacturer, O-I New Zealand. The collections in 2004 did, for the first time, exceed the volume that O-I could use and therefore there were collections for which there were no markets.
In order stop government intervention, stop gap measures were taken by some enterprises utilising glass packaging while an equitable approach embracing all in the supply chain was developed under the Forum.
The program designed to find alternative uses for the excess glass does not include subsidies but supports R&D for the development of local uses.
The Glass Users Group now formally the Glass Packaging Forum, has worked with a core Steering Committee since 2005. At the August 2007 Annual General Meeting the following were reconfirmed as the Steering Committee.
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CHAIRMAN David Carter Lion Nathan www.lion-nathan.com |
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Gareth Cartwright Frucor Beverages Ltd www.frucor.co.nz |
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Les Evans Pernod Ricard www.pernod-ricard-nz.com |
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Gary Shuttleworth O-I New Zealand www.recycleglass.co.nz |
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Donald Nelson Lion Nathan www.lion.co.nz |
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Kevin Ferguson Foodstuffs (Auckland) Ltd www.foodstuffs.co.nz |
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John Webber Glass Packaging Forum C: 021 949 215 Email : john@glassforum.org.nz |
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Lyn Mayes Mad World Ltd Communications Email : lynmayes@madworld.co.nz |
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Donna Hellens Glass Packaging Forum Email : donna.glassforum@xtra.co.nz |
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| OBSIDIAN OR VOLCANIC GLASS |
POURING MOLTEN SAND |
SILICA | LIMESTONE | SODA ASH |
Glass exists naturally as obsidian, or volcanic glass. People make it by fusing together several inorganic materials at high temperatures and cooling the liquid mass quickly, so that it solidifies to a vitreous or non-crystalline condition. This means its structure is as disordered as a liquid, and it has not distinct melting or solidification temperature. It becomes more viscous as it cools, until it reaches a temperature where it becomes rigid. Most glass used for packaging is soda-lime glass, made by fusing silica sand (silicon dioxide), limestone (calcium carbonate), and soda ash (sodium carbonate), along with other minerals which help in its processing, improve clarity, or provide colour.
We generally have positive feelings about glass, perhaps from the length of time that humankind has used glass, its manner of manufacture from common materials and fire, and its versatility and effects on lights. This feeling is exploited in packaging, where glass is used to give the impression of highly quality.
 | Early fabricated glass lacked the translucency of the naturally occurring glasses, but could be given form and decoration, had permanent colouring and was - unless broken - practically imperishable. Middle Kingdom glass beads Source: Petrie Museum, excerpt |
Glass has been used for over 5000 years, first as a decorative material and later for making vessels. The earliest existing man-made glass objects, mainly non-transparent glass beads, found in Egypt and eastern Mesopotamia, date back to around 3500BC.
In all that time it is only now that we are beginning to fully explain the structure and properties of glass. The lack of explanation didn't prevent technologists, craftspersons and artists during that time from producing a full range of items from utilitarian containers to wonderful works of art.
The composition and making of glass has changed little since these instructions were written in cuneiform text in Mesopotamia (now Iraq and Syria): "Take sixty parts sand, a hundred and eighty parts ashes from sea plants, five parts chalk, heat them all together, and you will get glass." The sand needs to be silica, the ash is soda ash or sodium carbonate, and the lime is calcium carbonate (adding calcium reduces attack by water).
There are various theories about how humankind discovered glass. The most common are:
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Observation, by seeing a lightning strike in a sandy area and noticing that glass was formed (no estimate date given) |
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Accidentally, when Phoenician merchants in Syria about 5000BC rested their cooking pots on blocks of natron (sodium nitrate, occurring in soda-lake deposits). The blocks melted with the heat and mixed with the sand to form an opaque liquid which solidified when it cooled (According to the Roman historian, Pliny, AD23-79). Coincidentally, while making glazes for pots. In central Mesopotamia, in 3000-4000BC, pot glazes used similar raw materials to those for glass. Perhaps sand contaminated with limestone became mixed with the glaze materials and formed glass when heated. |
Packaging in glass became possible only after hollow glass vessels could be made. The earliest glass pots date from about 1500BC and were produced in Egypt. Glass blowing, both free-form and inside moulds, probably began between 27BC and AD14, and has changed little since then in both method and tools. Today, the greatest advances have been in controlling the composition and annealing of glass and in automated moulding under highly controlled conditions.
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| CORKING A BOTTLE:1855 |
CHAMPAGNE TODAY | CARBONATED DRINKS | PRESERVES | COFFEE |
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Our thanks to the Packaging Council of New Zealand's PAC-IT Education Kit for the above information. The PAC-IT kit can be ordered on line www.pac-it.org.nz |
