To Save Energy: Less energy is needed to melt cullet (ground up old glass) than convert raw material to glass.
To Reduce Waste: Recycled glass generates 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution. A glass container takes a million years to even begin to decompose. Glass can be recycled an infinite amount of times. 9% of household waste is glass.
To Preserve Raw Material: For every ton of glass recycled it will save over a ton of raw materials from being used, including 1,300 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pound of feldspar.
One ton of recycled glass saves the equivalent to 10 gallons of oil in energy.
The Life of Glass ... Recycled: Glass can in two ways literally live forever. A glass container will spend a million years in a landfill before it will begin to decompose. If the glass is recycled it can be recycled an infinite amount of times over that million years. Once glass containers are collected for recycling they are cleaned and sorted by color. They are then crushed, (the crushed glass is called cullet) and the cullet is then re-melted with raw material and then formed into new glass products.
Facts about Recycled Glass Containers
Recycling one glass container saves enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
Producing a ton of glass from 100% raw materials creates 384 pounds of mining waste. Using 50% recycled glass cuts this waste by about 75%.
Recycling glass lowers the melting temperature and saves 32% of the energy needed for production of new glass.
