Glass recycling

Courtesy of Eddie Perazzo:

http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/benefits_of_glass_recycling.htm

Recycling glass is one of the most efficient methods of recycling a material. It takes millions of years for glass to be recycled in a landfill, while if you take it to any local store that recycles it you could save so much material and time. If you bring it to the store the bottle can be totally recycled, meaning it can be used over and over again. When you recycle glass, about 80% of that glass goes into making a brand new glass container. In terms of quantity, over a ton of material that is used to create glass materials is saved every time a ton of glass is recycle.

Recycling is also more efficient in terms of energy consumed. Making brand new glass, with only raw materials, requires heating at 2600oF. This requires an extreme amount of energy consumed. If you do the process through recycled glass, 40% of the energy used up through raw materials is saved. This is because “cullets” (products from crushed glass) requires much less energy in the making of a new glass.

Finally, recycled glass is far less dangerous chemically. There are less chemical interactions when it comes to recycled glass then if you were using raw materials. It is therefore much less dangerous to use recycled glass products in the home.

All of this just proves that recycling glass is so much better for general purposes then if you just threw it in a landfill. If people just took the time to bring the bottles to the local store to be recycled there then materials would be saved and energy would be saved.