Recycled Glass Chippings

1. Using conventional bottle banks the act of smashing glass could create microscopic shards of glass which can cause serious damage to human lungs.
2. The transportation of glass from these bottle banks to industry involves long journeys wasting the majority of the energy which can be saved by recycling in the first place.
3. The third reason was confirmed by the Rt. Hon. Margaret Hodge, Trade and Industry Minister, whilst addressing a packaging manufacturing industry committee in Westminster on the 12th June 2007, in saying “The majority of glass deposited in bottle banks cannot be used because of impurities.”

We first came across the revolutionary technology of glass implosion,invented by Krysteline Ltd of Wimborne in Dorset ,which renders glass sharp free, through a programme on BBC2 entitled “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, which illustrated the technology and showed how the chippings produced were used to build a heat exchanger.

At about the same time we had also learned that fine chippings produced in this way are an excellent material for shot blasting.

Armed with this information, we then started to wonder what else the chippings could be used for, bearing in mind they are completely sharp free and safe to handle.

We came up with a variety of practical and decorative applications; a few of which are illustrated here, although there is no limit to the number of uses they can be put to, varying from in aquariums, on graves, on paths and as an additive for mortars.
We decided that, as Krysteline’s technology fulfilled our requirements, we would invest in an automated recycling line, which would enable our recyclers to bring in their clean glass, in any quantity, and have it converted into chippings for them, there and then.
A completely unique service.

Thanks to help from Julian Hockley, our enthusiastic bank manager at NatWest, this became a reality.
It took some months to fine tune our production line, with the kind help of Steve Whettingsteel, Technical Director at Krysteline, and we are now delighted with the service we can offer enabling us, at last, to divert one more material from the waste stream.

As well as imploding and grading people’s glass, we also buy from those not interested in re-using the glass and also make available stocks of chippings for those who have a use for them.
For those who wish to purchase more than 50 kilos of chippings from our stock at a time we are pleased to offer a reduced price of 50p per kilo instead of 75p per kilo.
For anyone living in Kent who wishes to buy 1 tonne bulk bags of chippings, we can offer these at £500 per tonne including delivery.