Meet The Maker – Selomit Gomez

Continuing to celebrate our astronomical team here at Allied with our ‘Meet the Maker’ series, we are moving down the production line to meet Selomit Gomez, our Batch and Furnace Superintendent here at Verallia. Selomit works across a multitude of projects with us and is a specialist in glass chemical composition!

Tell us a little about yourself

I’m 35 years old and originally from Mexico. At University, I studied Chemistry, with a specialisation in Environmental science. I have worked at Verallia (formerly Allied Glass) since 2016, beginning my career as an Environmental Officer before moving to the Technical Department as Batch and Furnace Superintendent.

Can you explain your job role at Verallia to me?

My remit is expansive, I have responsibility for monitoring Allied’s Environmental KPIs and objectives such as energy efficiency, emissions and waste management whilst ensuring continual compliance with our environmental obligations. Then I also work on glass chemistry improvements, ensuring that the chemical split of raw materials is optimised to create our stunning glass products from extra white flint all the way through to coloured glass, whilst also working on sustainability projects.

What do you enjoy the most about working at Verallia?

I love being able to instigate sustainability improvements on-site, one of my focusses being to reduce Verallia’s carbon emissions, which have so far been lowered by 10.5% per tonne of glass in the last three years!

Really great to hear your involvement in Verallia’s environmental strategy, are there any other sustainability improvements you can tell us about?

I have also worked to increase the cullet usage in our furnace coloured glass production which can now be up to 97%, this significantly reduces the CO2 emissions from the raw materials. This project was also beneficial because the more cullet we use, means less raw materials being dug up from the ground and less energy being required to melt the batch.  So beneficial all round.

Since 2016, Verallia’s raw material consumption levels have reduced by 18%. I am also proud to say that both the soda ash and the sodium sulphate we use are both responsibly sourced and 80% of our raw materials are from within the UK.

What trends do you see happening within the glass industry?

With the net-zero targets being such a hot topic in UK and Europe, I believe that the glass industry will change massively in the next 10-15 years to achieve such targets and continue the journey to become carbon neutral.

I am very interested to see and be part of those changes from inside Verallia.

What is your go to drink?

I really enjoy a nice cup of coffee in the morning. I don’t drink much alcohol.

Selomit is a great asset to us here at Verallia and has been involved with many projects, all whilst championing our sustainability message. If you have enjoyed getting to know Selomit, then keep your eyes peeled as we will be releasing further interviews from our specialist team!

If you missed out, you can also check out our first Meet the Maker blog where we introduced one of our Specialist Bottle Makers, Alan.

Verallia is dedicated to bringing the world’s most prestigious brands to life, and our employees are at the centre of this. If you would be interested in working for us, do not hesitate to contact us.