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Glass containers are an environmentally superior packaging - nontoxic, high in monetary value, and can be recycled again and again with no loss in quality or purity as its structure does not deteriorate with reprocessing. Glass containers go from recycling bin to store shelf in as little as 30 days - again and again. While glass containers, such as those for food and beverages, can easily be recycled, other types of glass, like windows, ovenware, Pyrex, crystal, etc., are manufactured through a different process. If these materials are introduced into the manufacturing process, they can cause production problems and defective containers. In the case of bottles and jars, up to 80% of the total mixture can be made from reclaimed scrap bottle glass. When the curbside recycling is brought to a recycling center, glass bottles and jars are broken into smaller pieces called cullet. The glass cullet is then brought to a glass-processor who breaks it up further. The material is then sorted by color, cleaned, and prepared for mixing with silica, sand, soda ash, and limestone to make new glass. There materials are mixed, or "batched," and heated to temperatures of up to 2800° Fahrenheit, then molded into the desired shape. The cost savings of recycling glass is in the reduced use of energy. When glass is made from scratch, high temperatures are needed to melt and combine all the ingredients. Since cullet melts at a lower temperature, the more of it you add to a batch of raw materials, the less energy you will need to melt it. After accounting for the transport and processing needed, nearly 700lbs of CO2 are saved per ton of glass melted.
-Courtesy of Waste Management |
