Glass Recycling
Glass is an amazing thing in that it can be 100 % recycled. Even with paper still on it as this gets burned up in the process. This can happen again and again ad infinitum.
Things to know:
- Cullet refers to waste/recycled glass – an industry term for this.
- Local annual glass recycling figures have climbed from 147 000 tons to 295 879 tons. This amounts to a massive increase of more than 100% in the short history of The Glass Recycling Company
- An amazing fact about using waste glass / cullet is that there is no loss of fusion in the melting process. In other words, one ton of cullet will produce one ton of new glass. By contrast, 1.2 tons of raw materials are required to manufacture one ton of glass
Another good point about glass is that if you can't recycle it then try and reuse it in one way or another. There are loads of uses for glass and even storing other elements in one is fine as Glass wont contaminate any new substance contained therein. Just clean/sanitize the old one first.
Glass that cannot be recycled through the usual methods or at all:
- windscreens & window glass
- laboratory glass
- crystal and opaque drinking glasses
- mirrors
- heat-resistant ovenware
- light bulbs
- ceramic cups, plates, pottery & clay garden pots
Space wise, 1.52 cubic meters of landfill space (this is the size of an average refrigerator) is saved for every ton of glass that would be recycled.
Who to Contact:
The Glass Recycling Company
086 124 5277
To find out where your closest Glass Bank is simply SMS “Glass” and the name of your suburbs to 32310.