Glass Recycling

Glass is one of the most important materials to recycle today.Because it is widely used in buildings, to every wind translucentmost ,glass is relatively pure in substance, so melting it down releases less harmful chemicals into the air we breathe. There is also a quick turn around in the process of recycling the used containers, melting them down, manufacturing new containers and stocking them back on store shelves with your favorite products in them.

One hold up to recycling is that glass can come in such a variety of colors. These colors all have different chemical makeups that make them look the way they do. Thus, the recycling center has to sort out clear and colored glass into various categories. The most common are colorless, flint (or green) and amber (or brownish) colored glass. But there are also cobalt blue glasses, which was popular in "Depression glassware" and turn of the 20th century medicinal bottles and is making a comeback in food, ornamental and cosmetic products containers. Other drawbacks to glass containers are that they take up a great deal of space in landfills because of their density and can actually be a fire hazard if discarded on the side of the road. The sunbeams can intensify and concentrate when bent through glass causing dry brush and grasses to ignite. Like other statistics involving materials that are recycled versus manufactured new each time, glass that is recycled can tremendously help to reduce toxic emissions. So the necessity of recycling glass is, pardon the pun, very clear.

Glass is actually a natural product formed by the compressing of sand mixed with lime, soda or ash. Glass can form on its own in nature, but a vast majority of it is of course man-made. When glass is crushed and made ready to recycle it is termed "cullet". The United States is the country that recycles glass into cullet the most because in many countries, glass containers are still refilled (which if you think about it is recycling as well). In fact, in Europe 80% to 90% of glass containers are refillable. It is actually cheaper to collect, sterilize and glass refill containers than it is to make them into cullet, melt and remold them. Even so, in the U.K., nearly 752,000 tons are recycled each year. Statistics out of Germany show in 2004 their recycled glass containers reached over 2 million tons. In the United States, more and more states are giving rebates for glass that is turned in for recycling or refilling. If you look on glass bottles the abbreviation of the states currently participating in rebate programs are listed on the labels or in the glass itself. As more glass is recycled, more advanced technologies for separating the different colors as they stream by are being fine tuned. Also, even though every state in the U.S. has different regulations and rules for glass recycling, as do communities within each state, websites such as RecycleAbility.com can keep you up to date on the latest glass recycling news.