An award-winning initiative – recycling glass waste into Pink® Batts® insulation

As the owner and operator of New Zealand’s electricity grid, Transpower’s role is to keep the power flowing around the country so that New Zealanders have the electricity they need, when they need it.

Transpower is focused on driving behaviour change so ‘the sustainable way’ becomes business as usual.

Transpower, as the transmission part of the electricity system, supports renewable electricity generation entering the electricity grid. Currently renewable power generation sits at an average of 85% and this will increase in the coming years as more renewable electricity generators supply to the grid.

Transpowers commitment to minimising waste helped to steer their award-winning recycling initiative of turning their glass insulators back into our Pink® Batts® insulation.

The recycling initiative recently won the Sustainability Award for ‘Moving towards zero waste’. Up against two other finalists in the category, the initiative was recognised at the Transpower biennial Engineering and Technology Excellence Award for the positive long-term impact that it will have on our environment.

Recycling glass insulators into Pink® Batts® Insulation

During the early stages of the initiative, Transpower engaged multiple recycling partners, however very few aligned with their goals and were unable to meet certain processing requirements. To be successful, the recycler needed to demonstrate that they could safely separate the glass from the metal insulators which are bonded to each other with cement.

Enter Chris Grant, Managing Director at 5R Solutions who specialises in window glass recovery in New Zealand.  Since launching 5R Solutions in 2009, 5R have diverted more than 450,000 tonnes of glass from landfill — equivalent to 72 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of glass.

In 2022, Transpower and 5R Solutions started conversations about the possibility of a recovery programme. At this time, there were only pockets of the insulators being recovered, which has now turned into a complete recovery programme.

5R have been instrumental throughout this initiative, utilising their knowledge of supply chains, custom collection systems, processing of glass with tricky infeed materials and partnerships with logistics and metal recycling.

Comfortech® are proud to partner with 5R, working together for the last 15 years to improve the quality and consistency of the glass that is used in our Pink® Batts® insulation.

Grant shares his enthusiasm for the recycling initiative, saying “There is true zero waste from the recovery programme, we end up with glass and metal which is recycled 100%. The glass in turn is provided to make Pink® Batts® glass wool insulation which is providing an energy efficient outcome for housing. Transpower waste is leading to reducing energy for NZ housing.”

To ensure the recycling initiative was a success, there were plenty of challenges to work through including, developing a model to forecast the amount of glass Transpower will replace over the coming years, manufacturing specially designed crates to be reused throughout the initiative’s life, collecting the glass from the network with minimal impact on current methods of work and ensuring the toughened insulator glass would be acceptable during the manufacturing process.

Another key challenge was where the processed glass would end up and how the glass insulators could be recycled.  The glass also needed to go through a 12-month testing process in New Zealand and the United States before it could be recycled.

Due to our existing partnership with 5R Solutions and because our Pink® Batts® range are made from over 80% recycled glass, sourced by 5R, it meant that our product was the perfect solution for this initiative.  

Once the testing was complete and the results were successful, it was time to recycle. Today, the recycling initiative led by Transpower, and with the support of 5R Solutions and Comfortech®, 127 tonnes of insulators are diverted from landfill per annum, which is about the same weight as 60 cars.

Learn more about 5R Solutions and Transpower.