Reasons for Recycling glass.
“Glass is 100% recyclable and can be recycled endlessly without loss in quality or purity – something few food and beverage packaging options can claim.”
As it stand now, recycling glass as well as other recyclables, are ending up in the landfills because of the cost of separating glass colors, transporting the weight of the glass, and single stream recycling systems.
Multiple recycling streams reduced the cost of processing a variety of recyclables including glass, aluminum, and cardboard. It has been demonstrated that recycling using the multiple recycling streams has improved the glass recycling by as much as 137% over the previous year.
- EPA stated in 2018, landfills received approximately 7.6 million tons of MSW glass. This was 5.2 percent of all municipal solid waste, MSW, landfill that year.
- 39.8% of wine and liquor bottles were recycled in 2018.
- Over a ton of natural resources are saved for every ton of glass recycled.
- One ton of carbon dioxide is reduced for every six tons of recycled container glass used in the manufacturing process.
- Recycled glass* can be substituted for up to 95% of raw materials.
- Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10% cullet (the industry term for furnace-ready recycled glass) used in the manufacturing process.
- Which can means a reduction between 20% to 30% reduction in energy costs.
- States with container deposit legislation have an average glass container recycling rate of just over 63%, while non-deposit states only reach about 24%, according to the Container Recycling Institute.
While the curbside collection of glass recyclables can generate high participation and large amounts of recyclables, drop-off and commercial collection programs tend to yield higher quality recovered container glass.
We harvest our bottles from the curbside system and liquor purveyors which helps reduces glass that might not make the quality recyclable glass classification.
Recycling 1,000 tons of glass creates slightly over 8 jobs. (Source: Container Recycling Institute).
Other uses for recycled container glass can include tile, filtration, sandblasting, concrete pavements, and parking lots.
The World Wild Fund
- The cost savings of recycling is in the use of energy. Compared to making glass from raw materials for the first time, cullet melts at a lower temperature. So we can save on energy needed to melt the glass.
- Glass produced from recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20% and related water pollution by 50%.
- Recycling glass reduces the space in landfills that would otherwise be taken up by used bottles and jars.
- Using glass for recycling means there are less glass objects lying around in he landfill or bin.
*Other kinds of glass, like windows, ovenware, Pyrex, crystal, etc. are manufactured through a different process and are not recyclable using the same recycling method.
