Talk:Glass recycling

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I can't help but wonder if glass really is not economic to recycle. Some sources say that only commercial cardboard and metal (especially aluminum) are really useful. I do recycle my glass, but I suspect that it only gets crushed, and thus takes up less volume in our landfill. Comments, anyone? Remember, I am not trying to start a flame war; this is just a genuine baffled question. Thx, Dwight666 (talk) 02:36, 8 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This page needs some gramatical fixes, and more content is needed as well

I've tweaked the wording regarding remelting Pyrex, I hope this is more satisfactory Hertzsprung 20:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have completed a restructuring and clean up exercise removing much irrelevant information and incorrect statements. I have also added references from the UK glass recycling industry --Alex 14:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this page needs some info on how energy efficient it is to recycle glass. As in how much energy is used to recycle one unit of glass in proportion to how much energy is used to produce one new unit of glass. If anyone has the info, or bothers to find it, it would make a great addition! 79.138.193.102 (talk) 17:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please controll the German part for language mistakes. I'm sorry for my bad english, but I wanted to help to make wikipedia international ;-) Thx, :D 91.97.74.118 (talk) 14:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also disagree with the merger although I think the article needs to be improved and Wikified bring it into line with the Waste management category (subcat Recycling). It also needs to incorporate a section on the production of aggregates from glass which may be a valid method of recycling lower grade glass waste streams. Reference to standards & specification for glass waste such as the BSI PAS 101 and 102 would add credibility.--Alex 11:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should also point out that reuse is definately not recycling. Please refer to the waste hierarchy!it will help to recycle

Interesting point about the reuse thing, however in my town they call it the recycling bin and not the reuse bin, I believe I've seen this most everywhere else, in the US at least, where recycling sometimes occurs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WailecoEE (talk • contribs) 01:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article seems to neglect any mention of the fact that glass is not biodegradable. Hence, any glass that is not recycled does not biodegrade “harmlessly” back into the environment. This would imply that a significant proportion of that glass which is produced ends up being disseminated throughout the environment. Surely there should be some attempt to mention the below :

1)Quantify the proportion of glass which has been produced which ends up disseminated into the general environment.

2)Qualitatively describe the effect that glass of varying types is likely to have in the environment. For example, does glass inhibit or alter soil fertility? How might significant quantities of broken glass alter soil structure? Does glass alter the adsorption properties of soil and garbage in general?

3)This is a general comment which can be made for all recyclable materials, but how easily does glass disseminate throughout the environment? That is, once centralised (and low entropy sources) of glass are utilised in normal economic discourse (for, say, transporting milk or other drinking materials, say) – how quickly might that glass find itself distributed throughout the environment in a difficult to reuse/recycle manner once again (say, if a glass bottle is broken and then mixed into soil, etc...).

4)The wikipedia article on recycling states that : “Glass can be recycled indefinitely as its structure does not deteriorate when reprocessed.” However, this does NOT take into account the obvious fact that the ability to recycle glass is limited by the ability to collect it once it is disseminated for general economic use (a point which is related to the above). After glass breaks, for example, and after glass is littered on the streets to be mixed into debris and soil, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with.

5)Are there ways of reclaiming glassy materials from soils and general waste? It would seem that it is difficult to do this due to the fact that glass is chemically inert and probably not open to any obvious methods of separation from soil/general waste for this reason. Mechanical separation processes might be possible – though I am doubtful of whether large scale reclamation of glass from soil could ever be made economical. It might, for example, be possible to pick out crushed glass from soil-water mixtures as glass would have a very particular density (and could hence be removed via centrifugal separation or density based separation techniques).

6)A retort/comment on the point that “Heat-resistant glass like Pyrex or borosilicate glass should not be disposed of in the glass container as even a single piece of such material will alter the viscosity of the fluid in the furnace at remelt.” It would seem that, once various different types of glass have been sorted for recycling by remelting in furnaces, it should be relatively trivial to separate different types of glass using something such as centrifugal separation purposes/other separation processes.

I'm sure that there's other useful stuff which could be added – but the subject would seem worthy of a PhD thesis.

CountNihilismus 03:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is little need to mention that glass is not biodegradable nor do we desperately need research on the effect of glass in soil. Thrown out glass it tossed into landfills, not sprinkled into growing fields. Further, glass is easily the most inert material inside of landfill. The only thing that glass does once it is inside of a landfill is take up some space. You could try and argue that there is virtue in some small reduction of landfill space used, but it is a losing argument in any place but the absolutely most urbanized nations. There are no nations with any shortage of landfill space. I would advise keeping such silliness out of the article. If there is any virtue in recycling glass at all, it would be in reduce energy consumption (and even that is highly questionable).

65.78.25.168 (talk) 02:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to argue with the above statement. Even if energy is not saved through recycling glass resources are. land being one of those resources I am considering putting in the the fact that recycling a ton of glass saves 1330 punds of sand, 433 punds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pounds of feldspar. Also it is a verified fact that glass is not biodegradable and remains glass even when broken up. I beleive that we should point out positive affects of recycling in a factual format to remain non-pov please I want thoughts on what I have said.

7) No mention of "bottlin'". In the 1960s and 1970s, UK off licences charged a deposit on thick glass bottles, notably beer bottles. Many a child raised a significant amount of pocket money by finding such bottles on waste ground, in parks, and so on, and redeeming the deposit. The off licences would then return the bottles to the breweries to be washed and re-used.

Ridoco234 (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article strikes me as very UK-centric. For example, no mention is made of what happens to glass that is collected in the United States by Container deposit legislation. This glass is not separated by colour by the consumer and some of it invariably ends up getting broken by the machines. Is it separated later by hand? Are there mechanical separators capable of sorting glass (possibly even broken glass) by colour? There seems to be a lot of environmental justification of the process but no scientific explanation of how it actually works. -Drdisque (talk) 04:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. Even the names of small towns in England aren't identified as such. Moreover, I came here looking for information about the fact that, in the United States at least, some recycling facilities don't accept glass items because, they claim, there is no market for them. To the extent they are available, I'd love to see statistics about (1) the rate of glass recycables collection, and (2) the market for glass recylables in countries worldwide. The article in its current form talks articulately about certain benefits of glass reclables but lacks such statistics. 208.54.95.124 (talk) 17:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added some content on Canada, from a U.S. daily, no less. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 03:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

obviously this article needs to be revised to fit more into the world wide perspective and I think we should stop talking about it and simply do it. I think that we should move the information about the uk into a section called recycling in the Uk. I will act in a week if I do not get feedback. Ridoco234 (talk) 01:00, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is the process and details of recycling glass?

1) are the bottles simply cleaned and then redistributed? If so how is the glass cleaned. Or are they shattered and melted? or both?

2) Is their concern of containments in recycled glasses? Is it possible to mix two different types of glass (different viscosities) and still have a functional glass structure? Is leaded glass recycled, if so are there any labelling standards in effect for different compositions of glasses? Is recycling glass only based upon color? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WailecoEE (talk • contribs) 01:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please notice that this article is too short. I want to inform that we need more editors to edit the page on glass recycling. ==WIKIGEEK4970== 02:27, 1 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikigeek4970 (talk • contribs)

Every metric ton (1,000 kg) of waste glass recycled into new items saves 315 kilograms (694 lb) of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere during the creation of new glass.<ref>"Glass recycling information sheet". wasteonline.org.uk. Retrieved 2006-11-26.

1/ Retrieved from an advocacy group's pamphlet. That would not necessarily disqualify it but: 2/ Said pamphlet itself contains no methodological explanation, save for "After accounting for the transport and processing needed". Is this priced at marginal cost? Average cost ? Is this comparing the worst/average/best process from scratch with the worst/average/best recycling process? I have no idea, which makes this claim at best imprecise (save for the absurd apparence of 3-digit precision), at worst meaningless.

Can anybody incorporate a section about imploders? Quebec has recently started a initiative to solve its glass recyling problem by introducing implosion technology by the UK company Krysteline. http://www.krysteline.com/ This technology is very effective in separating glass from non-glass waste. Before I introduce a section mlyself I am asking if there is somebody around that has more expertise.  Andreas  ^(T) 14:14, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]