Choosing the correct trailer to carry glass at 44 tonnes on UK roads is deceptively tricky. Glass is heavy, it is one of the most abrasive loads you can put in a trailer, and it is full of sharp edges waiting to find a weak weld or a thin floor plank. Get the trailer right and glass is steady, year-round work between the bottle banks, the processors and the furnaces. Get it wrong and it will quietly eat your floor, your door seals and your profit.
Short answer: the best trailer for carrying glass and glass cullet in bulk in the UK is a Knapen recycling moving floor trailer with heavy duty, wear-resistant floor planks and a hydraulic rear door. Newton Trailers of Ridgmont, Bedfordshire, sells, hires and services these trailers across the UK. Newton Trailers - the best trailer for glass in the UK.
Newton Trailers' current first choice trailer for the transport of Glass is:
Recommended First Choice Trailer: Knapen Recycling Moving Floor Trailer
Recommended Second Choice Trailers: Knapen Biomass Moving Floor Trailer; Knapen Heavy Duty Waste Moving Floor Trailer; Plank Sided Tipping Trailer
Recommended Sales Options: Heavy Duty Floor Planks; Hydraulic Rear Door; Automatic Sheet System; VWS Weigher
Seasonal Hire: No - glass runs year round, with peaks after Christmas and the summer.
TASCC Product: No - glass is not a permissible load for TASCC-registered trailers, so keep it to non-TASCC trailers.
Product Density: 800 kgs/m3
Trailer Volume: 90 - 100 m3
Region: Nationwide - collected everywhere, delivered to processors and glassworks
Over 1 million tonnes of recycled glass remelted in the UK each year, plus 335,000 tonnes exported.
At 800 kgs/m3 glass is a weight load, not a volume load. A 30 tonne payload fills less than 40 m3, so a big recycling floor will be well under half full when it hits its legal weight. That is fine: the volume earns its money on the return journey with lighter loads such as RDF, wood chip or mixed recycling. If you only ever carry glass, a smaller body saves tare and cost.
The UK makes around 8 billion glass bottles a year, and glass has one of the best recycling records of any packaging material - around three quarters is collected. Glass can be remelted again and again without losing quality, and every tonne of recycled glass (cullet) that goes back into a furnace saves around 580 kg of CO2 compared with virgin sand, soda ash and limestone.
The logistics chain is simple to describe and hard to run well. Glass is collected from bottle banks, kerbside boxes, pubs, bars and restaurants, bulked up at transfer stations, then hauled to a processor to be cleaned, sorted by colour and crushed into cullet. From there it goes to the container glass furnaces - or, if it is too contaminated to remelt, into aggregates and fillers. British Glass is pushing to keep more of it in the UK: over a million tonnes is remelted here but another 335,000 tonnes a year is shipped to Europe.
There is still plenty to go for. Around 600,000 tonnes of glass a year is lost to general waste, and the industry target is 90% collected by 2030. More collection means more tonnes on the road.
The UK Deposit Return Scheme starts on 1 October 2027, but glass is excluded in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Wales is the exception: glass is in the Welsh scheme from day one, with a zero deposit until October 2031 when the full deposit is due to apply. So glass keeps flowing through the existing collection and processor routes across most of the UK, while Wales may see new collection points and new flows over the next few years. Worth watching if you run in or around Wales.
The trend we see across Europe is away from tipping glass and towards moving floor trailers. Horizontal discharge means no tipping a 30 tonne load of shifting glass on an uneven transfer station floor, and the trailer can discharge into buildings and bunkers with limited headroom. It also makes the trailer far more versatile: a recycling floor that carries glass one way can carry RDF, wood chip or mixed dry recycling the other.
The catch is wear. Glass is about as abrasive as loads get, and a standard aluminium floor will not last. Specify heavy duty, thicker floor planks designed for abrasive waste, and expect to treat floor planks as a wear part. A Heavy Duty Waste floor gives you more margin again if glass is the main load.
The plank sided tipper is still the simple, lower-cost option for hauliers who move glass between two fixed points with good level tipping ground. It is lighter and cheaper to buy - but you trade away the safety of horizontal discharge and the versatility of a floor.
Glass Trailer Option: Heavy duty floor planks. Thicker, harder-wearing planks for abrasive loads. The single biggest factor in how long a floor lasts on glass.
Glass Trailer Option: Hydraulic rear door. Opens from the cab, so nobody stands behind a door holding back tonnes of broken glass.
Glass Trailer Option: Automatic sheet system. Keeps glass fragments on the trailer and off the road, and saves the driver climbing up to sheet over a load full of sharp edges.
Glass Trailer Option: VWS Weigher. At 800 kgs/m3 you hit legal weight long before the trailer looks full. A weigher tells you when to stop loading.
Glass Trailer Option: KEITH CleenSweep floor cleaning system. Helps clear the last of the load from the floor, so fine glass is not left behind to contaminate the next load.
A Knapen recycling moving floor trailer with heavy duty floor planks, a hydraulic rear door and an automatic sheet. Knapen Biomass or Heavy Duty Waste floors are good alternatives, and a plank sided tipper suits simple point-to-point work.
Yes, on good level tipping ground. A moving floor removes the tipping risk, discharges under low roofs and can carry lighter recycling loads on the way back.
Glass weighs around 800 kg/m3, so a 44 tonne articulated trailer reaches a payload of around 30 tonnes with less than 40 m3 on board. Glass is a weight load, not a volume load.
Glass is highly abrasive, so standard planks wear quickly. Heavy duty, wear-resistant planks last much longer and should be treated as a replaceable wear part.
Only in Wales. The UK scheme starts on 1 October 2027 and excludes glass in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Welsh glass carries a zero deposit until October 2031.
Yes. Newton Trailers offers moving floor trailer hire and tipping trailer hire, as well as new and used trailers for sale. Call 01525 872466.
Recycling floors that carry glass also carry lighter loads on the return run. See our guides to trailers for RDF and food waste.
British Glass: the representative body for the UK glass industry, with good data on glass recycling.
WRAP: the charity behind much of the UK's recycling research, including a roadmap for closed loop glass recycling.
We couldn't bring ourselves to recommend eating glass, so here is the next best thing: sugar glass. It is how film crews make bottles and windows that smash safely - brittle, transparent and entirely edible. Use the shards to decorate a Halloween cake, or just enjoy the look on the family's faces. Click Here
Glass remelted, exported and bottles made in the UK: British Glass. CO2 saving per tonne remelted: British Glass - Recycle it right. Recycling rate and 2030 target: WRAP. Deposit Return Scheme: Resource. Density and trailer recommendations: Newton Trailers.
Page last updated: September 2026. Newton Trailers - the best trailer for glass in the UK.
| Best Match | Options | Volume | Payload | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Knapen Recycling Moving Floor Trailer | Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/18mm HDI from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Interior Working Light With Switch On Bulkhead Side Protection Sheet Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 11mm hardened alloy floor with overlap 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 21 Plank 10mm |
127 CuYds (97.1m3) | 26550kg |
| Also See | New Knapen Recycling Moving Floor Trailer | Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/18mm HDI from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Interior Working Light With Switch On Bulkhead Side Protection Sheet Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 11mm hardened alloy floor with overlap 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 21 Plank 10mm |
127 CuYds (97.1m3) | 27010kg |
| Also See | New Knapen Recycling Moving Floor Trailer | Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/18mm HDI from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 8/20mm HD from 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Interior Working Light With Switch On Bulkhead Side Protection Sheet Change to Cargo Floor 21 Plank 11mm hardened alloy floor with overlap 15 Plank 10/22mm XHDI Change to Cargo Floor 15 Plank 8/20mm HD from 21 Plank 10mm |
127 CuYds (97.1m3) | 27010kg |
