Why Aren’t We Using More Recycled Glass?
Let’s take a look at glass. Better still, let’s look through glass. What do you see? Technically speaking, glass is not a true solid, it’s actually a “super-cooled fluid”. But that only matters if you are a student of really old windows, when the slow flow of glass under the influence of gravity makes the lower half of an antique window thicker than the upper.
The materials you’ll need for making glass are soda ash, silica and limestone. Both limestone and silica are products of quarrying whereas soda ash is created by the worldwide chemicals industry. All the ingredients are melted together at very high temperatures to produce the endless varieties of glass we use today. These glass uses range from glass fibres which are used in windows and windscreens, to bottles and jars.
A huge amount of energy is used in the creation of glass, both production and pre-production. So using recycled glass to make thing such as recycled glass vases must be a good thing, right?
Up to a certain point. Unfortunately, most glass we buy in products is actually brand new and rarely recycled. The reason for this is that manufacturers tend to insist on uniformity and creating glass like that is only feasibleby creating it from scratch
The very best thing to do with bottles and jars is theoretically to clean them and reuse them for their original product. Within the UK, this only happen on a major basis with milk bottles which some people get delivered to their door. Each milk bottle is clean out and refilled on average 12 times. The reason why reusing glass is so successful in this form is because alongside dropping off fresh milk the milk delivery system also involves picking up old bottles. The biggest reasons why other types of bottle recycling has not worked is mainly down to the lack of cooperation from retailers who don’t want to organise the collection process, and then the cost of returning imported bottles for products such as wine.
Most other bottles are ground down to a new raw material called cullet, which can be re-melted back to form more glass. But it isn’t. In fact the glass we recycle is used in lots of other ways, such as inclusion in aggregate mixtures used in road surfaces. The majority of bottles that do end up being recycled are made from brand new glass. Your recycling efforts won’t change that. The reasons why glass is never re-used to make new glass is because firstly, it costs too much to transport due to the uncertain composition and lastly, glass manufacturers have precise requirements for glass.
Plate glass has an even worse excuse. A large amount of glass is used each year for replacing glass windows, particularly in sealed double-glazing units. Ever wondered what happens to the old units? They go to landfill. The reason for this is because it’s simply too costly to seperate the glass from the rest of the unit.
It’s actually very difficult to find a retailer that sellers products created from recycled glass. They should be treasured and encouraged because their producers are able to demonstrate that it can be done. So here’s a link to a UK retail supplier with many recycled glass products on their range, including recycled glass tableware such as plates, bowls and wine glasses, as well as colourful recycled glass bathroom accessories such as soap dispensers.
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