Recycling operator praises partnership with North East University

WRL Glass Media achieve major recycling accreditation with help of Teesside University

AN award-winning recycling company is going from strength to strength thanks to its partnership with Teesside University. Middlesbrough-based WRL Glass Media are taking unwanted glass and, subsequently, processing it into granulated form for applications such as water filtration and shot blasting.

Since the business was taken over by parent firm Ward Recycling in 2012, the recycling operator has seen its sales steadily increase in both the UK and European markets.  

WRL Glass Media have recently opened a new office in Prague to service The Czech Republic and has successfully exported to France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Italy, to name but a few.

The company has credited a lot of this success to its ongoing work with Teesside University. Ward Recycling decided to take over WRL Glass Media when its previous owners, who were in partnership with Ward Recycling, went into administration.

The glass recycling market was new to Ward Recycling and so the firm turned to Teesside University for help to achieve the PAS102 accreditation, which reclassifies waste to a secondary product.

WRL Glass Media manager Gareth Godwin said: ‘When our partner went into administration, we were left with a choice to either cut our losses or to take on the glass recycling plant and remain in the industry and learn about how we could reconfigure the business. That was when we contacted Teesside University who supplied us with all the information we needed to do to get the PAS102 accreditation.’

Once the accreditation was achieved, the company was helped to obtain a Regulation 31 certificate which allows granulated glass to be used for filtration for human consumption – WRL are one of only two companies in the UK to achieve this standard.

Suhail Aslam, head of the Teesside Manufacturing Centre, said: ‘The work we have done with WRL Glass Media shows the breadth of services that we can offer to businesses. What they are doing recycling unwanted material into a usable product is extremely useful as the UK looks to reduce the amount of waste it produces.

‘WRL Glass Media were a worthy winner of the New Exporter prize at the recent North East Process Industry Cluster Annual Dinner, and we are delighted to have been able to play a part in the company’s success.’