Our innovative scheme developed to ensure more waste packaging can be reused, rather than recycled or sent to landfill, is on track to break its target of giving a second lease of life to more than 2,000 steel drums by the end of this year.
The initiative was launched last year as part of our efforts to further reduce the carbon footprint of our products and operations. Up until that point, we had already taken positive steps by sending the 210 litre steel drums used by our sealant supplier to be recycled when empty. This is a far preferable option to landfill, but one that still has a larger carbon footprint than reuse.
By forming a partnership with specialist waste management company WasteCare, we have been able to ensure the empty steel drums can be professionally cleaned to remove any contaminants and reconditioned for resale for a wide range of uses. The revenue generated by the sale of the drums to WasteCare goes into the our GreenVision initiative, a fund that supports environmental and social improvement projects throughout Yorkshire and beyond.
Ian Short, Managing Director of Morley Glass commented: “It is incredible to think that we will have diverted more than 2,000 steel drums away from recycling by the end of 2025 – less than two years since we started the scheme.
“Setting up better recycling processes has been massively beneficial to the industry from a sustainability perspective, and it has now become second nature to many businesses in the window and door sector. We know that from the ever increasing volumes of cullet we generate ourselves from the post-consumer IGUs we collect, a waste product that can be used as a raw material in the manufacture of new building glass.
“But reuse goes one step further. It is preferable to recycling because it means less energy is required to deal with the waste product, whatever it may be. That can only be a good thing for an industry that is looking to do as much as possible to cut the carbon emissions resulting from our activities.”
In addition to collecting empty steel drums for reuse, our team also ensures that thousands of high quality plywood boxes do not go to waste every month. These are used by ScreenLine integral blind systems manufacturer Pellini S.p.A. to transport products from its factories in Italy and the Czech Republic to the Morley Glass factory in Leeds, as these are ideally suited to protect the sensitive components during transit.
We donate the wooden boxes and additional plywood to local schools, who use them in art, craft, design and technology projects. These are also donated as the main raw material used in the various ground-breaking programmes provided by The PIECES Project, which help young people boost their entrepreneurial and creative skills.
