Why Bother Recycling Glass?

Glass is everywhere but not all of it is recyclable.  Glass is a sustainable material that is an very good packaging material. Using glass to package food and beverages gives them a longer shelf life than those packaged in plastic and many people think the food or drink tastes better in glass than plastic. Glass prevents contaminants from entering food and beverage products, because it is an excellent barrier. Glass doesn’t give off chemicals the way that plastics do to the contents that are packaged inside.
 
Because of its density and weight glass takes up a large amount of space in the landfills when we do not employ glass recycling in our everyday lives. Unfortunately many people still don’t recycle glass; they throw away bottles and jars that could go to a glass recycling plant. For every ton of glass that is recycled the environment is spared 693 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released.

The process of recycling glass is quite involved. It has to be evaluated for quality before it can be used. Any traces of bacteria or remains such as debris and food contents are removed from the glass. The glass also has to be sorted based on the color so it can be very time consuming.  Clear glass is used to make jars and bottles for beverages and needs to be separated from green glass and green glass needs to be separated from brown glass. Green glass is used to bottle wine and some beer bottles, while brown glass is used to bottle beer.

When glass goes to a glass recycling plant it is crushed into small pieces so that it can be remelted to make more bottles and jars, at this point the recycled glass is called cullet. Once that is done there are molds that the mixture is poured into to form new of glass products.

Not all glass is recyclable, because they have impurities in them. Some examples of impure glass are light bulbs, window panes and glass cookware. Window panes are manufactured by mixing the glass with ceramics to make the glass strong. Make sure you check with your local recycling plant to see what they will accept and if they do the sorting or you have to sort the glass by color yourself.

Some manufacturers work with with glass recycling companies. They buy the glass containers for their products from them after they have been molded into certain types of containers. This is less expensive for the company than buying glass to make them on their own. It also shows consumers that they are dedicated to recycling and to cutting down waste in the environment.

The process of recycling glass for construction has been effective as well. It is ground down and referred to as glassphalt. So far the reviews of this type of material have been very good. It is likely that it will start to show up in more types of construction projects in the near future.

In many areas laws were passed that require consumers that purchase carbonated drinks to pay an extra five cents for each container. Being required to pay a little extra for soda pop encourages people to bring their bottles to the recycling company where they will get their deposit back as a refund. By looking on the bottom of the beverage bottle you can see if you will get a refund for your soda bottles, because the states abbreviations are printed on the bottles.

When recycling glass for a curbside or private glass recycling company you need to recycle in containers that are provided by the companies. When you recycle glass there is always a chance the glass will get broken, so the special containers are for your safety and the safety for the glass recycling handlers.

For more information about recycling visit http://www.RecycleKnowHow.com and pick up our free recycling plan.

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