iQ Renew: new recycling project produces tiles from recycled glass and coffee cups

Our Australian Cat-HTR commercial partners, iQ Renew, are pioneering another innovative recycling solution – creating tiles from recovered glass.

iQ Renew are partnering with UNSW SMaRT Microfactories (The Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology), Planet Ark, Vinnie’s and local business to produce recycled glass tiles for applications such as benchtops and furniture. The tiles use recovered glass blended with other recycled materials such as coffee cups, textiles and coffee grinds. These glass panels contain up to 80% recycled materials and create valuable new products from resources otherwise difficult to recycle.

Australia consumes about 1.36 million tonnes of glass packaging every year. NSW alone produces about 460,000 tonnes of used glass every year.

This initiative with SMaRT Microfactories gives iQ Renew another local market for recovering glass, as solutions are desperately needed.

To find out more about the innovative program, watch the below video.

SMaRT_Microfactories_Recycled Glass Panels with Textile / Coffee Cup / Coffee Grounds from Christopher Brymora on Vimeo.