The Framers Forum

Hello fellow framing people,
I've recently been asked to start a new green policy for our shop, which is a small independent here in York. Anyone out there in a similar position with any ideas about what we can do about float glass off cuts? It's one of our major waste items and seems to be an industry wide problem. I've contacted Pilkingtons as an industry leader to see if they have any sort of policy about how they want to make advancements / what might be happening with regard to this problem but as yet no reply. Just to know someone else is struggling with this would be good.
If you are looking environmental issues yourself and just want to chat that would also be very supportive. I'm right at the start of this process but perhaps there are others out there who have been thinking of these challenges for a while and can give advice / encouragement?
We are generally in a good position as we wrap in paper and card, but have some problematic items like paper wipes we use for glass cleaning.
Anyway, if you are on the green wagon, let me know!
Kat
(Finisher and general assistance to the kettle, now Green Policy Person)
p.s. sorry if my replies have a few days between them, I have to go to a library at the moment for my internet access due to some badly timed ongoing house works.

Glass wise, we pay Wessex, our glass supplier an annual fee and a charge per container to collect and recycle our glass offcuts.
They provide us with a certificate for this.
Even though we are a work from home business, we also pay the council for a weekly trade waste collection.
Our mountboard offcuts go to artists/parents with children.
We are now setup for paper wrapping however we are in one of the wettest parts of the UK and more often than not, the bubble wrap is used both to protect the work before collection and to keep it dry during collection/delivery.
There is a vegetable based cling wrap on the market but I believe it's only available in warehouse size rolls at present.
We reuse as much of our suppliers packaging as possible and ask our regulars customers to return any packaging for reuse, which many do.
We have colour coded bins in our workspaces, to separate trade waste, trade recycling, anything we can use domestically (to light/feed fires etc).

Recycling, or reusing your waste glass is not a straight forward problem. The cost of getting waste glass taken away and recycled is a big problem. I don't get my waste glass specially taken away and removed. Many waste removal service operators, just don't offer this service at all. I have realised the there just is not point in trying to utilise any pieces of glass below 6 inches square. The market for anything below that size is virtually non existent. I have storage cubby holes for storing usable off cuts and they are deliberately limited in storage capacity. Once a storage cuddy hole is full I've got more than enough pieces of that size to be usable for a few months.

There is no point in keeping pieces of recycled glass, beyond your availability of waste mouldings, backing board and mountboard. It is just no advantage to you whatsoever. I cut my off cuts in to certain sizes to store, because storing random sizes only makes life difficult finding a suitable sized piece for want you are currently needing. The volume of unusable glass that I have to put in the dumpster is relatively little. Also as you can probably imagine, only a limited amount of my glass waste is of much financial advantage to me. I would probably be better off not to bother at all, but putting useful resorces in to landfill is not all that smart either, so in some messure I am doing my little bit. I wish it was more!

Justin,
What does Wessex do with the glass that the collect? send it to a glass factory or send it to a land fill?

In normal times we have all our glass offcuts collected and recycled. We have a 240 litre bin and it gets collected around once a month. Our normal trade waste contractor uses a sub contractor who also goes to the local pubs, cafes, hotels etc and collects their empty bottles and broken glass. Obviously with everything in the hospitality industry being closed down at the moment, this has been suspended again, so the only other option is for the normal waste contractor to collect it and send it to landfill. So we are waiting for the recycling service to start up again. It might be worth seeing if there is a similar service in your area. (once things get back to normal and the hospitality sectors reopens again)

For glass cloths we use micro fibre cloths for the cleaning and cotton cloths for polishing - and all of these get washed and reused until they are beyond being saved. Then they go in the fabric recycling bins.

We have always used card and kraft paper to wrap some frames - but unfortunately do also use a large amount of bubble wrap. We do take that back in from some customers to reuse, but a lot of our customers keep hold of it and reuse it themselves, especially the artists. When there is an affordable option of an eco version of bubble wrap we will happily swap to that. We did look at the paper bubble wrap you can get, but it just doesn't fold around frames so easily.

All our card and paper is recycled weekly. Any food waste goes in the compost bin in the garden at home. We have a general waste bin too, but that gets the least amount put in it each week.

Jerome,
According to their terms of service it is recycled, as they threaten to withdraw the service if the containers are contaminated with other waste.

Glass is basically sand that has been processed.

A lot of glass goes as aggregate for road building.

Recently a big factory building near to me was demolished. It had a HUGE acreage of glass in it - maybe 200 5'x5' panes.
I was half-expecting them to remove it. Instead they crushed it all along with all the bricks. It went for road aggregate.

Hello everyone
Thank you all for taking the time to reply, lots to think about here - I didn't know Wessex offered such a service and will let the bosses know, as well as exploring the other options. We do try and use off cuts and have a shelf of reasonable sized pieces but you do get tot he point where the piece is just too small to be usable.
We have pretty much decided to try and use cloth as much as possible and just accept that there will be paper waste for things like polishes and waxes.
As said, lots to think about and all useful so thank you!

Hopefully we will all be back to work soon!
Keep in touch with any ideas or developments,
Kat
x

Hi kat,

I think just about everyone will be doing the reuse, recycle bit in their own way as suits their own situation. I suggest that you also do it in your own way as well. Stuff like this too easily can become something to beat people over the head about. However you decide to do it, just make sure that you are comfortable with how it works in your own situation and it will be soo much easier for you.

My pimary object in my own efforts is mostly aimed at saving my self a bit of money. It is true that I don't like unnecessary waste, but there are always practical limitations to consider as well. I hope that you find the right system that works for you.