A COUNTY Durham company has developed a process for sorting and cleaning heavily contaminated waste glass, which could revolutionise the recycling industry.

Derek Parnaby Cyclones International Ltd is based on Chilton Industrial Estate, near Ferryhill, and it was Ben Parnaby, the 26-yearold grandson of the founder, who came up with the new process.

The company invested £1.2m in the project which has now been shortlisted in the Innovation of the Year category at the MRW National Recycling 2014 Awards being held in July.

The system is far more efficient than current technology and significantly increases the amount of badly-contaminated glass that is able to be re-used by manufacturers, resulting in increased turnover and improved profitability.

Ben Parnaby said: “We’ve been refining the process and developing the technology over the past 12 months and the results have proved excellent and have exceeded our expectations.

“The process hugely increases the efficiency of the separation and cleaning of the materials, which also improves further recycling processes downstream.”

The latest separation method – the Parnaby Cyclone Glass Density Separation system – has been developed ahead of new EU regulatory requirements for waste glass.

The process incorporates a closed-circuit water treatment plant and is designed to separate glass particles from the residual material that remains after sorting broken glass and other reusable materials from domestic waste.

Ben said: “We are talking to several companies who have large-scale requirements in this field and we’re confident that we will see an increase in demand for this process. To be shortlisted for the award is validation that we have hit on a winning method.”