If there’s a special drinks promotion taking place in Bradford, Michael Durr knows about it.

“I can tell when the drinking habits of the Bradford public change,” he says, as he walks around the 15-acre site in that is home to his family-run business.

“If one of the supermarkets in Bradford is running a big Budweiser promotion and people are buying more of that brand, I quickly get to know.”

Michael is company director of Glass Recycling UK, the country’s largest independent glass recycling firm. The company collects thousands of tonnes of glass bottles and jars every day.

And the type of bottle varies from week to week. A Budweiser promotion will bring amber -–what the public know as brown – bottles, Stella and Heineken, green.

“Most people drink according to price, not taste,” says Michael, “We can tell what is going on in a particular area.”

Glass placed in Bradford’s kerbside recycling bins ends up at the Barnsley firm, as do bottles and cans – which the facility also collects – and glass from bottle banks.

The glass and cans are transported daily to the plant from two depots, in Bowling Back Lane and Keighley. Since April last year, around six tonnes has been sent from the district.

The number of bottles and cans collected from the city peaks this month, following Christmas and New Year celebrations. “The amount rises overall by about 30 per cent,” says Edith Grooby, recycling and waste minimisation officer with Bradford Council.

Across the district, people are keen to know what happens once the bottles and cans are picked up. Common questions include whether bottles and jars need to be washed out.

“We know that with some types of jar, for instance those containing pickle, or baby food, people find washing them out difficult and throw them into landfill,” says Council marketing officer Tracey Thackray. “But so long as the bulk of it is removed, that’s fine.” Lids can also remain on jars.

Glass is stored in bays by colour at the plant, which has the capacity to process 250,000 bottles every hour. A loading shovel transfers it into sorting lines where contaminants are removed. The glass is carried through each sorting process on a long conveyor belt.

Large objects, such as ceramics, brick, plastic or porcelain are removed manually. Steel rollers then crush the glass to a size specified by the customer, before it is carried to a vibrating ‘bar screen’ which removes paper, wine corks and other non-glass products.

Next, a strong magnet removes ferrous metals, such as pieces of steel, wire and iron filings. A vibrating screen, utilising laser technology, removes smaller pieces of stone, brick and ceramic.

The glass is then taken to local glassworks to be made into bottles and jars.

More than half the bottles are green (52 per cent), 33 per cent are clear and the rest amber.

“We have around double the volume coming through at this time of year, and there is a greater variety,” says Glass Recycling environmental manager Ron England.

Recycling glass is a hugely-beneficial process, as the structure of the material does not deteriorate when reprocessed, meaning 100 per cent of the waste glass can be reclaimed and used in the manufacturing process.

Recovering and recycling glass also reduces the demand for raw materials, as they have to be quarried from the landscape. It is believed that for every tonne of recycled glass, 1.3 tonnes of raw materials is preserved, causing a reduction in quarrying in the UK.

The firm collects from around 6,500 bins across the UK. Ninety-nine per cent of the material is used to create new bottles, with the remainder being used for aggregate.

“The problem of contaminated glass does not usually apply to that collected in Bradford, as it is sorted at the kerbside,” says Edith. Around 99.9 per cent of glass from Bradford is remelted, with a small fraction possibly ending up in landfill.

“It is good to know that we are doing it right and that we have something to shout about,” she adds.