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Glass bottles pile up; collectors say no recycling demand
View(s):The collection of glass bottles for re-use or recycling has come to a standstill. Uncollected bottles are now piling up on roadsides or in the backyards of houses, pubs, bars and clubs. Bottle and paper collectors say they have stopped collecting glass bottles as there was no recycling demand for them. Liquor shop owners said 180 ml bottles which are not even collected by distillery companies are also found thrown about.
Glass bottles on the roadside (above and below). Pix by Indika Handuwala
Selliah Ravi a bottle and paper collector in Kotahena said that he doesn’t accept glass bottles because they are not collected by recyclers and the bottles take up too much space in his small planked house cum shop. Another bottle and paper collector Ganesh Kumar (36) also from Kotahena said that although he continues to collect plastic bottles he will not collect glass bottles. He said he used to send the glass bottles to a small-scale glass recycler but they no longer accept them.
Meanwhile an Environmentalist Hemantha Vithanage who is a member of the technical committee on plastic regulations appointed by the cabinet, said that glass bottles are not being collected as there were only a few glass- recycling plants in the country He said he had proposed the introduction of an extended producer responsibility policy where manufactures have to collect their own containers whether glass or plastic, but it was not approved by the cabinet.
A senior official of the Environment Minsitry said that they tried to implement the extended producer responsibility but it never got off the ground as many food and beverage companies did not support the move,.
