Page 40 - Packaging News magazine November-December 2022

CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Orora opens $25m
glass beneficiation plant
The new Orora glass beneficiation plant in South Australia has begun operations, with the $25m facility set to recycle 150,000 tonnes of post-consumer glass each year, to be used by the company’s glass manufacturing plant next door. Wayne Robinson reports.
ORORA CEO BRIAN Lowe and South Australia Deputy Premier Susan Close officially opened the advanced technology plant in October. The SA and Commonwealth govern- ments provided some $8m of the funding for the new plant.
With just 12 staff and the latest opti- cal technology, the highly automated plant will remove impurities from used broken glass through crushing, cleaning and sorting, to deliver crushed contam- inant-free glass, ready for manufacture into new products.
The company says the new plant will enable the 900 million glass bot- tles manufactured at the company’s Gawler facility to have an average of 60 per cent recycled content by 2025. All
Not only does this progress Orora’s sustainability agenda, it enhances our ability to support our customers’ sustainability goals, in turn contributing to the circular economy and the sustainability of the Australian glass industry.”
– BRIAN LOWE, CEO, ORORA
Below: South Australia Deputy Premier Susan Close and Brian Lowe, CEO of Orora, at the company’s new beneficiation plant at its Gawler glass facility.
the recycled glass will be used by Orora for beverage and liquid food products, which includes bottles for wine, beer, carbonated soft drinks, kombucha, water and olive oil.
The new plant took just a year to build, overcoming supply chain issues, and bringing in the latest European tech- nology for its automated sorting process.
Orora CEO Brian Lowe described the beneficiation plant as a major mile- stone in the company’s sustainability journey: “Our new world-class benefici- ation plant is a significant achievement as it will increase the amount of recy- cled glass used in our manufactured products, allowing us to process up to 150,000 tonnes each year – that’s equiv- alent to approximately 330 million wine bottles or 750 million beer bottles. Not only does this progress Orora’s sustain- ability agenda, it enhances our ability to support our customers’ sustainability goals, in turn contributing to the circu- lar economy and the sustainability of the Australian glass industry.”
Speaking to PKN, Lowe said, “Together with our new oxygen-fuelled furnace at Gawler, we are offering our customers a low emission, highly recy- cled product.”
Deputy Premier Susan Close said, “Consumers are increasingly demand- ing recycled packaging, and this project makes a significant contribution to the circular economy and the sustainability of the glass industry in this state.
“The investment of the Commonwealth and SA government aligns with the gov- ernment’s focus on increasing Australia’s capacity to generate high value recycled commodities, investing in recycling and waste infrastructure, as well as creating new opportunities to recover and reuse resources,” Close said.
40 ❙ NOVEMBER – DECEMBER 2022
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