The second life of a glass bottle: a Tver enterprise develops production and takes care of the environment

Many products cannot get on store shelves if they are not packaged: in a box, bottle, jar. Packaging is an important component in the chain producer - buyer. And it may well turn out to be of Tver production, for example, it was made at the Tver glass factory of JSC Glanit.

In just one month, the company produces about 18–22 million bottles, cans and other products, which then go to coffee factories and distilleries in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities of the country. We managed to visit the enterprise and see with our own eyes how “fiery” bottles jump out of hot ovens, how they go through “natural selection” and what glass containers are actually made of.

– Our plant was established on the basis of the Stekloremont enterprise in June 1968. Here they mastered the production of high-quality tableware - various types of glasses, wine glasses, because there was a great demand for it at that time. And since the 1990s, they have launched the production of container utensils, these are bottles and cans, - said Andrey Vasiliev, technical director of JSC Glanit, a separate division of Tver.

In 2008, a new workshop was built here with a furnace with a capacity of 260 tons of products per day and three glass-forming lines were installed. During the pandemic, they also stayed afloat, they didn’t even stop production, being included in the list of backbone enterprises.

And in August last year, the fourth 12-section line was launched, which made it possible to increase output: now the plant produces about 700-800 thousand products per day. Modern equipment allows not only to produce large volumes of products, but also to guarantee its high quality. And there are enough customers all over Russia.

Today, because of the sanctions, of course, there are some difficulties. Equipment and components at the plant are mainly imported, so the management is actively looking for suppliers in Russia. With oils and lubricants, the situation is simpler - there is certainly an analogue to imports.

Hot production

Our tour of the plant began with a huge hangar with raw materials. Glass containers, unlike plastic bottles, are made from natural materials: sand, feldspar, soda ash, limestone, dolomite and other additives. Raw materials enter the plant by rail - a special branch leads here, and is unloaded into special bunkers. All components are mixed in the right proportions, a certain amount of cullet is added (usually 15-25%) and poured into a glass furnace. Here it is, the hot heart of the enterprise! In a furnace at a temperature of 1560 degrees, the mixture is melted and fed into the glass-forming machine.

Then the molten glass, which was given the desired shape, goes to the annealing furnace, where the so-called "stress" on the glass is removed. The work of machines, without exaggeration, fascinates. Glass bottles, just produced, glow, passing their long way through machines and conveyors ... It turns out that the production impresses not only us, but also the employees of the plant.

“When I came to the company in 2005 as a glassmaker apprentice, production, equipment, and scale fascinated,” admitted the head of the glassmaking section, Maxim Koloskov. - When you operate a huge furnace with 400 tons of molten glass, it's impressive.

Today, the plant can be called a high-tech production without exaggeration. Many processes are as automated as possible. But without qualified specialists, there is nowhere: today about 400 people work in the production.

The most important stage is product quality control, and this is done by both special machines and people. Next - packaging and waiting for shipment to Russian factories that produce coffee, lemonade or alcohol.

Bank - for processing

On the territory of the plant, we found two huge piles of something shining in the sun. It turned out that this is cullet, an important part in the composition of bottles. Now, as we wrote above, up to 25% of cullet goes into the mixture. But up to 90% can be used, which means that much less natural raw materials will be required in production.

- An organized collection of cullet, unnecessary or broken cans and bottles, would be a good help for us. Then we would buy less natural materials, - Andrey Vasiliev noted. – Today we have organized a collection point near the factory, where we accept colorless dishes for a fee. In addition, the plant cooperates with six restaurants in the city and three recreation centers. In total, we collect about five tons of cullet per month, but we would like more.

A ton of recycled cullet saves more than a ton of natural raw materials. And another environmental plus is that what went into processing did not end up in a landfill. The average Russian family buys about 10 units of glass containers per month - these are juices and soda, coffee and canned food. Most of them are simply thrown away, with the exception of those who use jars for home canning. Although glass is an environmentally friendly material, its decomposition time is hundreds of years!

– And why is it necessary to process glass containers, and not to process, as it was in the Soviet years? we asked, looking at whole boxes of cullet bottles.

There are several reasons, as it turns out. Firstly, the bottle also has its own period of use and it is impossible to sterilize it indefinitely. Secondly, if earlier factories produced standard containers, now each customer prefers his own unique bottle shape. And, thirdly, the costs of “renovating” an old bottle and producing a new one differ little.

Today, the company is making plans for further development - in two years to reconstruct the glass melting furnace and increase production by another 40-50 tons of glass per day. The management of JSC "Glanit" is confident that the future belongs to glass containers.

A ton of recycled cullet saves more than a ton of natural raw materials: about 650 kg of quartz sand, 185 kg of soda ash and 200 kg of limestone.

Source: https://vedtver.ru/