The company, which opened the first factory of its kind in Elektrėnai, is looking towards Latvia and Estonia.

Waste management services company Ekobazė has embarked on a bold and decisive project: it is investing more than 1 million euros in the unit at Elektrėnai, where it will start recycling automotive glass, according to the company’s press release. The new technology makes it possible to recycle old windows, their glass containers and waste from the production of new windows.

“We made the investment decision after evaluating that we can produce the final product from this waste: broken glass; and sell them as raw materials to glass factories of your choice both in the EU (Lithuania, Poland) and in other countries (Belarus, Ukraine). The freedom to choose our business partners gives us more independence and profitability. Subsequently, various bottles, window glass and other products with broken glass are manufactured ”, presents the active shareholder Marius Kubilius.

Ekobazė is the first in the Baltic countries to start recycling automotive glass, and its eyes are also on Latvia and Estonia. “The technological efficiency of the new line is such that Lithuanian waste alone is not enough”, explains Marius Kubilius.

A natural question arises: why hasn’t car glass been recycled in Lithuania so far? The secret lies in the production of automotive glass: the glass sheets are glued with a special film, so that, for example, in the event of an accident, there are fewer dangerous crumbs. This is why it is technologically so difficult to separate glass from film. According to a similar principle, the glass of windows or facades is protected.

The “Ecobase” unit is equipped with fully advanced robotic equipment. These are metal detectors, optical sorting equipment (which separates stones, ceramics, porcelain and other non-recyclable materials). The only “laminating” device of its kind in the Baltic countries separates the film from the broken glass.

The automotive glass product is broken by a laminating mechanism, and additional special equipment sifts the separated glass particles from the film. The film that remains after the repetitive processes is still being used for energy production, but in the future it is planned to improve the interface to 100%. separable to recycle good quality plastic film.

The technological processes will be supervised by about 10 highly qualified specialists recently hired. Choose Elektrėnai as a strategically attractive region for investment, between Vilnius and Kaunas; Also, here is a railway track, which is convenient for transporting the produced raw material to other countries.

According to Marius Kubilius, investors understand that this is a long-term investment, so they do not expect a quick payback and attribute it to two factors: not as fast as they would like, the growing environmental awareness of people and companies and insufficient economic conditions when landfill prices are still low. low enough.

“The circular economy starts with ourselves first. Therefore, each of us has to deal with how waste is handled by the car service center, which we use,” he adds.