Insulation industry news from Global Insulation
North America: A survey by the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) has revealed that its members used over 0.9Mt of recycled glass to produce residential, commercial and industrial thermal and acoustical insulation in 2017. The survey included data from both US and Canadian production plants.
Producers also used over 0.3Mt of recycled blast furnace slag in the production of thermal and acoustic insulation. Since the industry’s recycling program began in 1992, NAIMA estimates that its members’ plants have diverted an estimated 26Mt of recycled materials from the waste stream.
“Our industry is tremendously proud of the substantial use of recycled content in the production of energy saving insulation products,” said Curt Rich, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of NAIMA. “These products ultimately reduce building energy use and decrease our carbon footprint. Over the long term, the fibre glass and mineral wool insulation industry expects to continue using substantial amounts of recycled content in the production of insulation products.”
UK: Knauf Insulation and Veolia have officially opened a Euro11m glass-recycling unit at Knauf’s St Helens mineral wool plant. The unit will be able to recycle over 60,000t/yr of used glass that will then be used as a glass cullet source for glass mineral wool production.
"We have been using recycled glass in our manufacturing process for some time already. As well as securing our glass supply, the quality and consistency that we are getting now from the new facility will enable us to increase further the percentage of glass cullet we use in the manufacture of our glass mineral wool insulation solutions, taking us one step further in our sustainability journey,” said John Sinfield, Managing Director at Knauf Insulation Northern Europe.
Veolia's unit sorts and separates glass to produce pure glass cullet. Machinery at the unit includes vibrating screens for size sorting, magnets to extract ferrous materials and eddy current separators for non-ferrous materials. The new facility enables Knauf Insulation to secure its glass supply and maximise the use of recycled materials instead of using virgin minerals. The closeness of the new unit to the St Helens plant is also expected to save around 600,000km of road journeys. Glass mineral wool products from the plant contain up to 80% recycled materials, the vast majority of which now comes from the glass cullet supplied by Veolia. The new recycling unit has also created 18 jobs.
UK: Knauf Insulation has entered into a long-term contract with Veolia to support the construction of a glass cullet-processing unit next to its insulation production plant in St Helens, Merseyside. The unit will be constructed and operated by Veolia on land owned by Knauf Insulation. It will provide recycled glass for use in Knauf’s insulation products. Veolia has invested Euro11.6m into the unit it plans to build by the end of 2017.
“We are delighted to be working with Veolia on this project, which perfectly aligns our goals for sustainability and the circular economy. Given recent shortages impacting the construction sector, our customers can be reassured that we are working proactively upstream to further enhance the security of our supply,” said John Sinfield, managing director at Knauf Insulation Northern Europe.
The new facility will dry and refine glass into a ‘furnace ready cullet’, a recycled standard of glass that has been cleaned and crushed into small fragments. The cullet is then fed into a furnace where it is melted and spun into glass mineral wool.
Germany: Saint-Gobain has purchased the Augustdorf glass plant in North Rhine-Westphalian from Teuto-Glasveredelung. The unit produces thermal insulating glass products as well as sound-insulating glass and other glass products. The purchase is planned to be completed in March 2017, subject to approval by the government.
