Rising energy costs and society’s growing awareness of sustainability have increased the incentive to recycle. With the IG2Pieces assembly line technology, Hegla has developed a solution that can automatically separate insulated glass. At the same time, the company offers a handling concept that retains the purity of the raw material and improves revenues, or enables panes to be reused as such.
What Hegla says
“Thanks to a newly developed separation method, the automated process leaves only a minimal amount of sealing compound on the surface of the pane,” says Heinrich Ostendarp, managing director, Hegla.
How it works
The measurement of the ISO dimensions and the insulated glass structure is fully automated. Once the glass has been removed from the laminate, it can be recycled without any loss of raw material quality. Just like the panes, the unimpaired spacers, including the intact desiccant, are conveyed to a separate system for disposal or recycling.
Separated recycling of the individual types of glass yields advantages, compared to mixed containers. When panes are professionally separated, this generates added financial value. The impact on the environment is also positive: the panes find their way back to the float tank to close the material circuit, while preserving the quality of the raw material. Further, one kilogram of float glass that is produced from used glass generates around 0.3 kilogram less carbon dioxide, compared to a classic glass mixture.
