Sibsteklo has more than doubled its glass waste processing capacity

Dear colleagues, we are publishing news about the member of the Association "StekloSouz" of Russia, "Siberian Glass" LLC (Sibsteklo):

Sibirskoye Steklo LLC (Sibsteklo, the largest glass container manufacturer beyond the Urals, a partner in Russia's national projects, and an asset of RATM Holding) has completed the commissioning of the second stage of its glass waste processing facility, with a capacity of 72,000 tons of secondary raw materials per year. Thus, the annual capacity of the enterprise for preparing cullet for recycling has increased by 2.2 times, to 132,000 tons.

The launch ceremony was attended by Deputy Governor of the Novosibirsk Region Oleg Klemeshov, Minister of Industry, Trade, and Entrepreneurship Development of the Novosibirsk Region Andrey Goncharov, Head of the Department of Investment, Consumer Market, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship of the Novosibirsk City Administration Alexander Morozov, and Head of the Central District Administration for Zheleznodorozhny, Zaeltsovsky, and Tsentralny Districts of Novosibirsk Vladimir Zakharov.

By replacing mineral components with glass waste, the plant improves the quality of glass, reduces energy consumption and, as a result, carbon dioxide emissions, and also extends the service life of glass furnaces, reduces the rate of depletion of minerals and the share of solid municipal waste disposal at landfills, from where the enterprise mainly receives broken glass. It must be processed to meet the requirements of glass production.

Let us recall that the first stage of the technological complex - two lines processing 60 thousand tons of recyclable materials per year, was launched in March 2023. As reported by Anton Mor, General Director of Sibsteklo, the two new lines within the second stage also carry out crushing, screening and magnetic separation of glass waste to remove iron elements.

- Our specialists found the optimal investment solution: the total cost of the equipment was 25 million rubles, - Anton Mor clarified. – It is planned to equip the technical complex with optical and eddy current separators for separating glass waste by color, cleaning it from non-ferrous metals and non-metallic inclusions.

To date, thanks to the efforts of Chistaya Strana LLC (which collects glass waste in the interests of Sibsteklo), the share of cullet in the composition of the raw mix for the production of colorless glass containers has increased to 35%, and up to 60% of recycled materials are already used for the production of brown bottles. The task is to increase the overall figure to 80%.

According to Oleg Klemeshov, the enterprise has the potential for growth:

– This will be the best result in the Russian Federation, even abroad such a quantity of glass waste is not used everywhere. Recycling of solid municipal waste in the Novosibirsk Region is developing, only at the right-bank landfill of Novosibirsk they can select about 800 tons of secondary material resources monthly.

According to the director of Chistaya Strana, Alexander Martynov, today glass waste is delivered to the site from the Moscow, Yaroslavl, Lipetsk, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Sakhalin and Amur regions, the Altai, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk and Primorsky territories, the Republics of Bashkortostan and Buryatia.

As a reminder, Sibsteklo is a party to agreements aimed at ensuring sustainable flows of MSW with the executive authorities of the Tomsk and Irkutsk regions, the Altai Territory, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Novosibirsk Region and AB InBev Efes. A strategic agreement was signed with the Russian Ecological Operator PPC on cooperation in the construction of an eco-industrial park in the Novosibirsk Region.

According to Anton Mor, the development of processing capacities should be supported by the availability of stable volumes of glass waste, primarily from the regions of the Siberian Federal District. – Localization of supplies will allow us to form a reasonable cost for secondary resources, taking into account delivery costs, and reduce the transport footprint, – comments Anton Mor. – At Sibsteklo, we are ready to consider options for participating in the creation of an infrastructure for primary sorting of MSW. For collecting companies, this will increase the liquidity of glass waste, in turn, the glass factory will receive glass waste of better quality, which will expand the possibilities of its involvement in economic circulation.