A study compiled as part of Repak’s Recycling Week, a record 60,000 tonnes of glass from Irish households has been recycled by Rehab Recycle in the last year.

The new survey reveals that the huge deposits, which total 195 million individual glass containers - enough glass bottles to stretch approximately 37,000 miles - were collected in Rehab Recycle bottle banks around the country in the last 12 months. This marks an increase of over 16 per cent on the previous highest deposits recorded in 2005.

The bring bank at Glasthule in County Dublin claimed the honour of being Ireland’s busiest bring site, with deposits totalling a staggering 1,060,000 bottles and jars.

“In the past five years, deposits at Rehab Recycle bring centres, nationwide, has doubled from 30,000 tonnes of waste glass to in excess of 60,000 tonnes last year. These returns represent an extraordinary effort to recycle by most Irish people” - said Rehab Recycle general manager, Bob Rowat. “Put in perspective, if you laid down all of the bottles and jars we collected over the last 12 months end-to-end, they would stretch around the world one and a half times.”