5 Reasons Why Glass Recycling is Simply the Best
By Avril Mcneill

Glass is one of the best materials around for recycling. The waste glass is firstly sorted into colors and impurities removed. It is then crushed – the crushed glass is called cullet. The cullet is melted down and mixed with “virgin” glass before being made into new products.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons for Glass Recycling.

1. It Saves Energy

It takes enormous amounts of heat to make new glass (1,600 degrees Celsius) but cullet melts at lower temperatures. It is estimated that up to 50% of energy is saved by recycling glass. That is good news for

the environment and saves money too.

2. Recycle again and again

Glass can be recycled over and over again with almost no loss of quality! There are no waste products either.

3. No Landfill

If you did not recycle glass it would end up in a landfill. Here it will stay as glass forever – it will not break down in the way that some other materials do, such as paper. On the plus side, glass is inert and will not damage the environment whilst it is in the landfill!

4. Different Products

More glass is not the only product to be made from recycled glass. It can be used for water filtration, ceramic sanitary ware, “Astroturf”, golf bunker sand and abrasives. It can also be made into stylish tiles or used for kitchen worktops.

5. Conserves Resources

The more we re-use the fewer resources we need. Recycling glass means we use less of the raw ingredients needed to make “virgin” glass (silica, sodium carbonate and lime are the main ones). This not only conserves the raw ingredients but it prevents a significant amount of the waste produced in mining them.

So the next time you are about to throw away a glass bottle, think about all the good you could do by taking it to your nearest recycling collection point.

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To fin out more about glass recycling, please see http://www.breakglass.org/glass-recycling.html. Avril McNeill is committed to providing and developing high quality break glass equipment to enhance safety products. More information is available on the website, http://www.breakglass.org.

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