Making glass creates gas and CO2, but recycling glass into new products has several environmental benefits:
•
Energy saving
• Lower emissions
• Reduced landfill
• Less quarrying
If recycled glass is used to make new bottle and jars, the energy needed in the furnace is greatly reduced. After accounting for the transport and processing needed, 315kg of CO2 is saved per tonne of glass melted.
Recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil water for five cups of tea.
Annually, total glass use in the UK is estimated at around 3.6 million tonnes.
Glass makes up around 7% of the average household dustbin and in 2001 over 2.5 million tonnes of this material was landfilled.
Glass
is unique in that it can be recycled indefinitely without loss of
quality. Recycling glass instead of dumping it in landfill is
environmentally hugely beneficial. In the case of bottles and jars, up to
80% of the total mixture can be made from reclaimed scrap glass, called 'cullet'.
Cullet from a factory has a known composition and is recognised as domestic
cullet. From bottle banks it is known as foreign and its actual properties
will not be known.