Glass recycling - Why?

[rynnor]

I've been thinking about this one for a while and I'm beginning to think its a scam.

Recycled glass 'cullet' is used in the manufacture since it lowers the overall melting point of the mix which saves energy thus saving the glass companies money. Thus for the glass companies its a great idea!

However, a massive amount of energy is expended in collecting the stuff not to mention peoples time sorting it - if people have to drive to their nearest bottle bank it more than wipes out the energy they save.

Thus the net energy used in recycled glass could well be higher than producing it from the raw materials - so why do we do it? Because the companies that are saving a lot of money by displacing their energy costs onto the general public say its a good thing... oh wait a minute!

They also argue that it reduces landfill which is true but then glass occurs naturally, is completely inert and non-toxic and is made from sand which will not run out in the lifetime of the human race

If your worried about glass being in the ground you might as well worry about soil being in the ground.

The other problem is that we produce far more green glass from recycling than clear yet the demand in this country is for clear so we have a massive overstock of green cullet.

Overall I am becoming convinced that the only ones who benefit from glass recycling schemes are the glass companies...

 

[Huntingtons]

I've been thinking about this one for a while and I'm beginning to think its a scam.

Recycled glass 'cullet' is used in the manufacture since it lowers the overall melting point of the mix which saves energy thus saving the glass companies money. Thus for the glass companies its a great idea!

However, a massive amount of energy is expended in collecting the stuff not to mention peoples time sorting it - if people have to drive to their nearest bottle bank it more than wipes out the energy they save.

Thus the net energy used in recycled glass could well be higher than producing it from the raw materials - so why do we do it? Because the companies that are saving a lot of money by displacing their energy costs onto the general public say its a good thing... oh wait a minute!

They also argue that it reduces landfill which is true but then glass occurs naturally, is completely inert and non-toxic and is made from sand which will not run out in the lifetime of the human race

If your worried about glass being in the ground you might as well worry about soil being in the ground.

The other problem is that we produce far more green glass from recycling than clear yet the demand in this country is for clear so we have a massive overstock of green cullet.

Overall I am becoming convinced that the only ones who benefit from glass recycling schemes are the glass companies...

well the paper on them have toxic prints! non refied oil occurs naturally, lets just drop it everywhere, yay!

 

[rynnor]

well the paper on them have toxic prints! non refied oil occurs naturally, lets just drop it everywhere, yay!

Did you miss the bit about glass being inert and non-toxic then?

It strikes me that the best form of glass recycling would involve re-using the existing glass structures - saving 4 GJoules per ton - why dont we do it?

Because then we wouldnt have as much need for manufactured glass so oddly the glass manufacturers arent keen on it

 

[psyco]

well the paper on them have toxic prints! non refied oil occurs naturally, lets just drop it everywhere, yay!

his not talking about the paper

however, im not quite sure i agree with your theory, give us some figures and we *might* believe you

 

[rynnor]

his not talking about the paper

however, im not quite sure i agree with your theory, give us some figures and we *might* believe you

There arent any comparing the net energy usage but I'll see if I can come up with some.

Its interesting that none of the glass recycling websites actually mention net energy savings including transportation v non-recycled glass at all - only energy saved in the production process - if they actually did produce a net saving wouldnt you expect them to mention it?

 

[Tom]

Want to recycle glass? Chuck it into the sea. Let the tides do the rest. Nice shiny pebbles.

If there was money to be made, there would be companies paying me to collect my glass from my doorstep.

 

[Calaen]

lol Tom....

 

[rynnor]

If there was money to be made, there would be companies paying me to collect my glass from my doorstep.

Not if they can convince you to do it for free - if they had to pay you for it they wouldnt be making a profit on it

Anyone got figures on energy usage for the average car per mile? Would be interesting to try to build some figures for comparison.

Another thing that occurs to me is that the energy used to create glass from sand can come from effecient and relatively clean power stations whereas individual's cars are way more in-effecient and 100% reliant on fossil fuels so even if the energy usage was equal it would actually be worse for the environment...

 

[Gumbo]

Overall I am becoming convinced that the only ones who benefit from glass recycling schemes are the glass companies...

For some bizarre reason I am on my local Parish Council. We provide glass recycling bins on the car park for the village hall. We earn about £800 a year from a village of about 300 inhabitants. This has helped to pay for the provision of a playing field, amongst other things.

I don't really give a flying fuck about the environmental benefits. Glass recycling is helping to make the immediate environment here better by earning us money to spend on the community. Yay!

 

[rynnor]

Figures - rough n ready but heres a look at plugging in some figures.

If you live 2 miles from your glass recycling bin then your overall journey = 4 miles.

If you recycle 1 kilo of glass after processing each time then you would need to travel 4000 miles to recycle 1 ton.

Assuming 45mpg (unlikely in town but I'm being generous) thats 22.22 Gallons of standard unleaded gasoline.

1 Gallon = 33.53 Kwh (source - http://www.nafa.org/Content/Navigat...els/Energy_Equivalents/Energy_Equivalents.htm )

So energy expenditure = 745.0366 Kwh (and this ignores any energy used to heat water used to wash up the glass containers).

The energy saving from manufacturing glass using recycled cullet = 345 Kwh (source -
http://www.recycle-more.co.uk/nav/page638.aspx )

Which gives a total energy difference of an extra 400 Kwh expended!

A fair number of assumptions had to be made in these calculations but I hope it illustrates that glass recycling is not neccesarily a very green thing to do.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Well, in finland we only got glass bottles in booze and beer.

Booze bottles can be taken to our liqour stores for cash, beer bottles into the shops.

So, there's no extra energy used as the same companies that bring the drinks to the stores, take the old bottles for refilliing.

Smooth and simple

 

[rynnor]

So, there's no extra energy used as the same companies that bring the drinks to the stores, take the old bottles for refilliing.

Smooth and simple

We used to do that here when I was a kid but for some reason we stopped.

 

[Tom]

In Germany all the beer bottles are the same standardised design. So you just re-use them like the milkman does. You don't have to melt them down or anything.

Seems a perfectly sound solution to me.

 

[TdC]

here too. you'd get money back on nearly everything (ofc you had to pay it first). Ages ago when I worked for a supermarket, we had a huge amount of space and effort dedicated to processing returned bottles and things. I suppose the supermarkets hate that with a passion :/

edit: also Tom is quite right. most of the bottleworks here are completely standard, so they just get cleaned and then reused.

 

[psyco]

brits really are stupid

 

[DaGaffer]

In Germany all the beer bottles are the same standardised design. So you just re-use them like the milkman does. You don't have to melt them down or anything.

Seems a perfectly sound solution to me.

I seem to remember that you can only reuse a glass bottle a certain number of times before it becomes contaminated (seven times I think). The point still stands though; there was a time when you were encouraged to return glass bottles for reuse and you got money back on the bottle - it was great for the kid economy

Having said all that, in my area I didn´t have to take bottles for recycling, the council sorted it so long as I put all my recyclable waste in a particular bag, which I´d guess changes rynnor´s calculations somewhat.

 

[throdgrain]

I seem to remember that you can only reuse a glass bottle a certain number of times before it becomes contaminated (seven times I think). The point still stands though; there was a time when you were encouraged to return glass bottles for reuse and you got money back on the bottle - it was great for the kid economy

Having said all that, in my area I didn´t have to take bottles for recycling, the council sorted it so long as I put all my recyclable waste in a particular bag, which I´d guess changes rynnor´s calculations somewhat.

Yeah it was I remember it well. Having a building site near me and a seam of untapped Corona bottles was a source of income in the late seventies

 

[rynnor]

Actually I was way off on my figures - 22 gallons is the usage for travelling 1000 miles at 45mpg.

So the real figure was 88 gallons which is an extra 2200 Kwh's wasted so overall 2980 Kwh expended to save the glass manufacturer 345Kwh!

Doesnt sound too green to me - the break even point is 10 gallons.

To put this in perspective for every 45 miles people drive to deposit glass they would have to recycle 100 Kilos of glass just to break even.

 

[Tallen]

I've been thinking about this one for a while and I'm beginning to think its a scam.

Recycled glass 'cullet' is used in the manufacture since it lowers the overall melting point of the mix which saves energy thus saving the glass companies money. Thus for the glass companies its a great idea!

However, a massive amount of energy is expended in collecting the stuff not to mention peoples time sorting it - if people have to drive to their nearest bottle bank it more than wipes out the energy they save.

Thus the net energy used in recycled glass could well be higher than producing it from the raw materials - so why do we do it? Because the companies that are saving a lot of money by displacing their energy costs onto the general public say its a good thing... oh wait a minute!

They also argue that it reduces landfill which is true but then glass occurs naturally, is completely inert and non-toxic and is made from sand which will not run out in the lifetime of the human race

If your worried about glass being in the ground you might as well worry about soil being in the ground.

The other problem is that we produce far more green glass from recycling than clear yet the demand in this country is for clear so we have a massive overstock of green cullet.

Overall I am becoming convinced that the only ones who benefit from glass recycling schemes are the glass companies...

It's a well known fact that "bring" schemes are financially viable ONLY if there is a local glass reporcessor. Once you start to transport it over a certain distance it becomes economically AND environmentally unfavourable.

The driver in the UK is more of a financial one and it is driven by the Landfill Tax. This ramps up every year and will continue to do so forcing the balance for economically unfavourable recycleable materials to become viable.

The best use of recycled glass is in lower-end products and you need a large bulk of it to make this work. Hardcore is a good market which does not require expensive reprocessing, as is fibreglass and using ground cullet powder. Have you ever noticed how white lines on certain roads have a reflective effect? Thats ground glass cullet in the paint

 

[Tallen]

Want to recycle glass? Chuck it into the sea. Let the tides do the rest. Nice shiny pebbles.

If there was money to be made, there would be companies paying me to collect my glass from my doorstep.

Wait and see, in the near future you WILL be fined for not segregating your waste.

You heard it here folks, mark my words

 

[rynnor]

The best use of recycled glass is in lower-end products and you need a large bulk of it to make this work. Hardcore is a good market which does not require expensive reprocessing, as is fibreglass and using ground cullet powder.

Even the glass recycling companies say that hardcore is a bad use for recycled glass - the only reason we use recycled glass in landfill is because of the excess of green cullet.

Theres never likely to be any energy saving at all using it for hardcore so your just wasting fossil fuels compared to landfilling it - as you say this is driven by new landfill taxes by the EU but as usual they have missed the point with glass - surely recycling should be intended to help the environment?

 

[Sockstuff]

I have a 2nd wheelie bin for recycling stuff, including glass. This is collected from my door.... WOW!

 

[Clown]

Boost!

 

[Tallen]

Even the glass recycling companies say that hardcore is a bad use for recycled glass - the only reason we use recycled glass in landfill is because of the excess of green cullet.

Theres never likely to be any energy saving at all using it for hardcore so your just wasting fossil fuels compared to landfilling it - as you say this is driven by new landfill taxes by the EU but as usual they have missed the point with glass - surely recycling should be intended to help the environment?

Well, recycling should be to help the environment but you have to balance financial and environmental costs and benefits.

I know of several recycling schemes where the material is segregated at source but there is no local reprocessing facility so certain segregated waste streams go to landfill anyway as it's the best option both financially and environmentally.

Be wary of recycling boasts, I work in the waste industry and can tell you a lot of this so-called "recycling" ends up in landfill.

 

[ZiggY]

it was great for the kid economy

Old git lol !