Glass Recycling

Glass recycling is both simple and
beneficial. Let ’s start with the
benefits of glass recycling:
Glass recycling is good for the
environment. . A glass bottle that
is sent to a landfill can take up to
a million years to break down. By
contrast, it takes as little as 30
days for a recycled glass bottle to
leave your kitchen recycling bin
and appear on a store shelf as a
new glass container.
Glass recycling is sustainableGlass
containers are 100-percent
recyclable, which means they can
be recycled repeatedly, again and
again, with no loss of purity or
quality in the glass.
Glass recycling is efficient..
Recovered glass from glass
recycling is the primary ingredient
in all new glass containers. A
typical glass container is made of
as much as 70 percent recycled
glass. According to industry
estimates, 80 percent of all
recycled glass eventually ends up
as new glass containers.
Glass recycling conserves natural
resources . Every ton of glass that
is recycled saves more than a ton
of the raw materials needed to
create new glass, including: 1,300
pounds of sand; 410 pounds of
soda ash; and 380 pounds of
limestone.
Glass recycling saves energy.
Making new glass means heating
sand and other substances to a
temperature of 2,600 degrees
Fahrenheit, which requires a lot
of energy and creates a lot of
industrial pollution. One of the
first steps in glass recycling is to
crush the glass and create a
product called “cullet.” Making
recycled glass products from
cullet consumes 40 percent less
energy than making new glass
from raw materials, because
cullet melts at a much lower
temperature.
Recycled glass is useful. Because
glass is made from natural
materials such as sand and
limestone, it glass containers
have a low rate of chemical
interaction with their contents. As
a result, glass can be safely
reused. Besides serving as the
primary ingredient in new glass
containers, recycled glass also
has many other commercial uses
— from creating decorative tiles
and landscaping material to
rebuilding eroded beaches.
Glass recycling is also simple, as I
pointed out at the beginning of
this article. It ’s simple because
glass is one of the easiest
materials to recycle. For one
thing, glass is accepted by almost
all curbside recycling programs
and municipal recycling centers.
About all most people have to do
to recycle glass bottles and jars is
to carry their recycling bin to the
curb, or maybe drop off their
empty glass containers at a
nearby collection point.
If you need an extra incentive to
recycle glass, how about this:
Several U.S. states offer cash
refunds for most glass bottles, so
in some areas glass recycling can
actually put a little extra money in
your pocket.