The Packaging Council of New Zealand is trying to tackle the the mountains of container glass waste piling up around the country. John Webber, responsible for the packaging council's relationships with government said there was too much glass for the country's one bottle plant to consume & the situation was a lot more complicated than it appeared. He said researchers were searching "frantically" to find a use for the ever-growing mountains of glass. "To suggest that it cannot be used is wrong," he said. "It's serious, but the situation is not quite as black as it seems." One possibility is to crush the bottles to make aggregate for building materials. Over half of the bottled products consumed in New Zealand are imported, so having re-usable bottles would not be the answer, Mr Webber said. His group is pushing for a return to refundable deposits on bottles.
