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Glass Recycling Article
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The Glass Recycling Process
from: Green Living Help GuideFrom start to finish the glass recycling process is an interesting one. It all starts with you. Yes, you are the first part of the glass recycling process, for without you the glass would not be collected in the first place. The first order of the process is the separation of the different types of glass. Most of your recycling centers that take your household glass do not take window pane glass, light bulbs and Pyrex cookware. The reason the local centers that are contracted by the city you live in doesn't take them is that the chemical composition of these kinds of glass are much different than the glass that they use as cullet. The Window panes and Pyrex and even car windows can be recycled, but they cannot go onto the recycling truck that makes it's route because since all the glass has to be separated, there is just so much room on the trucks. Special recycling companies are equipped to take the glass that the local center can't take.
You should have a bin for each color of glass that you recycle. In the glass recycling process the color cannot be removed from the glass, so if green glass got mixed with red glass there would chemical and color contamination of the glass. Clear glass goes into one bin, while red goes into another, brown into another bin and so on. Before tossing your glass bottles and jars into the bins the glass should be rinsed so there will be nothing in the bottles to cause odors in your home. Washing or rinsing also makes it easier to clean the glass at the recycling center. Some people leave their recycling bins outside their home rather than inside because of space concerns. It does take space to collect the different colored glass.
Once the recycling truck has come to pick up your glass for recycling it goes to the recycling center where the glass is deposited for separation and cleaning. No matter how much effort we take in separating glass for the glass recycling process people still make mistakes and mix the colors together and throw in glass items that are not able to be recycled at the plant, so the employees of the center have to do a final separation. Sometimes the workers find household trash in with the recycled glass, so it takes time for the workers to get the glass ready to be turned into glass cullet. A big magnet is passed over the glass to get out any metal that has been mixed in with the glass.
Once the glass has been washed and separated the glass is headed to the crusher where the glass recycling process turns the bottles and jars into small pieces called cullet. The cullet is then sold to glass manufacturing companies that make new glass from cullet. Cullet is also used in the making of glass from scratch. Cullet is sold to manufacturing companies that produce concrete, and to companies that produce products for the construction and landscaping business.
The glass recycling process is one of the simplest of all the recycling processes because the glass is crushed up into a gravel like consistency and then sold to processing plants that package and sell the cullet as a product. Contractors use this glass product as filler for drainage areas. It's sold by the truckloads to construction companies.
Glass Recycling News
Blue for paper and glass, green for general waste - Khaleej Times
 7DAYS | Blue for paper and glass, green for general waste Khaleej Times The shift from the current waste collection system to the dual-system recycling process means residents will be tossing all recyclables like paper, cardboard, glass, plastics and aluminum into a blue bin while the other general waste will be thrown ... Sharjah residents to benefit from recycling initiative Sharjah in lean and green drive Households generate 600000t waste annually |
Letter: Challenge is using recycled items, not collecting them - Baltimore Sun
Letter: Challenge is using recycled items, not collecting them Baltimore Sun Paper ends up with the bottles and cans and domestic paper mills struggle with unwanted containers, particularly glass. These misdirected recyclables are contaminants and, with the possible exception of aluminum, are disposed of rather than recycled. |
Curbside recycling starts strong - Victoria Advocate
Curbside recycling starts strong Victoria Advocate Unaccepted items include used paper towels and paper plates, styrofoam, electronics, ceramics, dishes, yard waste, motor oil containers, light bulbs, hazardous waste, window glass, mirrors and trash. Recycling will be picked up every other week ... |
Recycling Electronics in New York City - People's Daily Online
Recycling Electronics in New York City People's Daily Online “Monitors and TVs have a lot of glass and can contain 2kg of lead. The flat screen monitors are more energy efficient, but they have mercury in them,” said Christine Datz-Romero, Executive Director of the Lower East Side Ecology Center. |
County recycling to get easier - Ocala
County recycling to get easier Ocala ... for “single-stream” recycling to be in place by the fall. That would mean residents and local businesses could dump all of their reusable trash — primarily plastics, glass, aluminum and tin cans, cardboard, newspapers and magazines — into one bin. |