The warning comes at the same time as the launch of a new Just Glass campaign, which aims to cut the rubbish found within deliveries of glass to the recycling plant by 80 per cent.
Emma Richardson-Calladine, the Infrastructure Department’s recycling manager said that if some residents and waste contractors continued dumping plastic and hazardous waste along with the glass, Islanders could be faced with added costs of ‘cleaning it up’.
‘We noticed a spike in the amount of plastic and hazardous waste, such as light bulbs and even microwaves, being dumped at the centre over the past year and it is not completely clear why.’
In addition to this, Richard Fauvel, the department’s assistant director of solid waste, added that the level of contamination was at high risk of breaching the Island’s waste management licence, which is governed by the Environment Department.
‘While it is unlikely, it is possible the licence could be removed, meaning there would be nowhere for the glass to be recycled, as we do not have a reprocessing centre,’ said Mr Fauvel.
Mr Fauvel added that if the situation did not improve, the department’s two main options would be to hire additional staff to remove the waste, or, alternatively, export the glass to a UK processing plant, both of which would result in an added cost to taxpayers.
‘A possible reason for the spike in plastics found in the glass deliveries could be people dumping their glass bottles in a deposit bin and not removing the plastic bag, either not to disturb their neighbours or out of laziness,’ added Mr Fauvel.
‘We have run similar campaigns before but have never had to explicitly ask Islanders to remove plastic from their glass before depositing.’
One part of the problem results from the way in which the centre currently processes the Island’s glass. Unlike the method of separating and reprocessing glass followed in the UK, Jersey crushes its glass and uses it as an aggregate material that is currently used to line the land reclamation at La Collette – a project that began in the 1990s which is expected to be completed in a few years, Mr Fauvel explained.
He added: ‘Once that project is finished, we will look to other ways to use the glass as an aggregate.’
A tour of the glass reception facility was given to Constables and waste contractors late last week by staff members to show the severity of the problem with a view to enabling parishes and glass collection firms to reject waste that is too contaminated.
Every parish provides a glass recycling scheme where glass is collected from people’s homes, except for those living in St Helier, whose residents can use any of the parish bottle banks.
Currently glass cannot be processed at the energy-from-waste plant, as it will melt, cool and then set within the facility and must be manually removed to prevent severe mechanical problems from developing.
