Letter to the Editor of SCMP - Response to letters headlined " No mention of glass recycling" (Dec 7, 2007)

 
Letter to the Editor of SCMP - Response to letters headlined " No mention of glass recycling" (Dec 7, 2007)

I write in response to the letter headlined "No mention of glass recycling" on 7 December by Michael Guilford regarding the recycling of glass containers.

At present, only a very small quantity of waste glass is recycled in Hong Kong. In other places or countries where waste glass recycling is more successful tend to have their own glass manufacturing industries to absorb large quantities of waste glass. In the absence of such local glass manufacturing industries in Hong Kong, recycling of waste glass on a large scale is inevitably difficult.

Likewise, exporting waste glass from Hong Kong to other places for recycling as we do for paper, metals and plastics is not commercially viable. Unlike metals and plastics, the cost and energy consumption in making glass from recycled glass is only marginally lower than that required for virgin materials.  As the economic advantage in using recycled glass when compared with virgin materials is very small, the price offered by overseas markets are very low and this can hardly cover the transport cost.

I thank Mr Guilford for his interest on waste glass recycling in Hong Kong.

Lawrence Wong
Principal Environmental Protection Officer
for Director of Environmental Protection Department