New Jersey Breaks Ground on World's Largest Glass Recycling Facility
As per estimates, glass cullet market is expected to grow by nearly 20% over the next decade.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Pace Glass has announced groundbreaking of new glass recycling facility in Andover Township, Sussex County, New Jersey. The plant, built at an investment of $55 million would be the largest of its kind glass recycling facility in the world. The construction phase is expected to extend up to 14 months. The plant is expected to become operational in 2019.
The 250,000 square-foot processing plant is built on 85-acre site, formerly a rock quarry, on Limecrest Road. Upon completion, the plant is expected to create around 80 local jobs in the region, in addition to nearly 60 truck driver jobs. The plant will employ innovative and state-of-the-art techniques to sort broken glass from trash and will have capacity to produce 800,000 tons of recycled glass per year.
The new Andover Township glass recycling facility will be capable of handling approximately 15,000 tons of recyclable glass per day from sorting facilities throughout the Northeast. The company expects three times production capacity when compared with the existing New Jersey plant. The existing plant will continue to operate along with the new facility, company press release said.
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George Valiotis, Chief Executive Officer, Pace Glass noted that the close proximity to major cities and towns will boost collection for recycling. The nearness to railway will ease logistics, he said. The plant’s innovative technology will help to capture and repurpose 90% of what is currently landfilled, he added. Pace Glass COO Michael Mahoney pointed out that there is a huge growth potential for glass recycling in the U.S. Incidentally, the glass recycling rates in the U.S is still less than 30%, as compared with 70% across Europe.
Mayor Janis McGovern noted that Andover Township is extremely delighted to welcome Pace Glass to the community.
As per estimates, glass cullet market is expected to grow by nearly 20% over the next decade.