By recycling plastics, the need for fossil fuels gets reduced, at least in the manufacturing sector where it is a material resource. The problems facing glass recycling in Massachusetts ― and what comes next With bottles in decline, how can glass be recycled in the Bay State? When recyclers find it too difficult or expensive to separate out glass, they send the entire stream to the landfill. This type of collection requires a high level of consumer education and is considerably more expensive than single-stream collection. In general, separating any single material for recycling at the point of generation is never a bad idea. I'm Mzamo Mafuleka i m so interested in glass recycling business, my problem is i dont know where to start and who to contact. The US glass-recycling shortfall comes down to the interplay between the quality and availability of cullet and the economics of making glass, he explains. Because glass does not decompose, it is important to recycle it. We need to find easy alternatives, like glass mulch and facilities need to find alternatives for the more recent changes to glass recycling. And there's the fact that plastic … One of the key complications is that developed nations tend to under-price landfill space in order to help dissuade illegal dumping. Since the, Most manufacturers require recyclable glass to be sorted by color in order to produce high quality glass bottles and jars. For example, glass … “It’s happening in different areas across the country,” she said. Because of the difference in the quality of glass from the two streams, just 40% of glass from single-stream collection ends up being recycled into new products, compared with about 90% of glass from multistream systems. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving. Auch Bleiglas, Kristallglas, Spiegelglas oder sogar Trinkgläser können das Recyclingergebnis negativ beeinflussen. We need to find easy alternatives, like glass mulch and facilities need to find alternatives for the more recent changes to glass recycling. The main problem with glass recycling is the quality of the glass collected. Description. The town of Hookset, N.H., recently told residents to start throwing their glass in the trash. © 2018. In August of 2019, Ypsilanti city officials announced that glass would no longer accept glass as part of curbside recycling. To start the sorting process, front-end loaders dump huge piles of single-stream recyclables onto conveyor belts. Glass Recycling in Hong Kong. “Recycled glass is nearly always part of the recipe for making new glass,” says Joseph J. Cattaneo, executive director of the Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), a trade association representing the North American glass-container industry. “Glass is 100% recyclable,” says Robert Weisenburger Lipetz, executive director of the Glass Manufacturing Industry Council (GMIC), a nonprofit trade association. Glass is heavy and expensive to transport. The problem with glass recycling is a broad issue and has become more common, Kardell said. Recycling glass has many proven environmental benefits–it reduces emissions, saves energy, and reduces consumption of raw materials. US municipalities manage residential recycling primarily via single-stream curbside collection. And the difficulty is that, like us, most equipment that sorts glass at recycling centres can struggle to tell the difference. But glass is a problem to recycle in the U.S. Everyone wants to recycle it but it’s the heaviest of all the materials and it’s dangerous when it breaks. But while the focus has been on plastic and specific problems like coffee cups and cotton buds, one of the main domestic and business waste streams – glass – hardly gets a mention. Single-stream means residents use their recycling bins to comingle glass with aluminum and steel cans, various types of plastic, newsprint, junk mail, cardboard, and other paper products. Note: Drinking glasses, glass objects, and window glass cannot be placed with recyclable glass because they have different chemical properties and melt at different temperatures than the recyclable bottles and containers. And national surveys show that Americans overwhelmingly favor glass recycling and deem it to be important. The problem: Too many people who are recycling glass through the city’s purple bins are throwing non-glass items into the glass bins, causing workers to have to separate the items. “Large quantities of high-quality cullet are essential to further increase the recycled content in our products,” says Frank O’Brien-Bernini, vice president and chief sustainability officer for Owens Corning, a major fiberglass manufacturer. Glass is also primed for recycling because it can be melted down and reshaped into more high-quality bottles and jars basically forever, in what’s known as a closed-loop process. Houston found an answer to its glass recycling problem when FCC Environmental Services, Northampton, U.K., announced the development of a new MRF in Texas, which will have the equipment to clean and process glass. Look for manufacturer/retail take-back programs that won’t leave your business holding the bag on glass. Santa Fe overhauled its recycling program this month and said it … The fight, thirty years ago, to keep Canadians’ fizzy drinks in refillable glass bottles was a good thing to do all along. Broken glass particles are passed through a revolving screen and sorted into 3/8” and 3/4” sizes. In this week's "Issues of the Environment," WEMU's David Fair discusses problems and solutions with Roger Betz, farm business management educator with Michigan State University Extension. Not All Glass Can Be Recycled Even though glass items can be recycled, there are a few exceptions. For restaurants and beverage retailers, the proliferation of the craft beer industry means more on draft and in cans (and fewer glass bottles). Compared with multistream recycling, “single stream is an inherently inefficient and expensive recycling method,” Lipetz says. The reasons are varied. Now, an early freeze could devastate the harvest this fall. Think Stock . You can contact David at 734.487.3363, on twitter @DavidFairWEMU, or email him at dfair@emich.edu. A large glass recycling plant in Franklin ... “There’s virtually no market for glass as a recycled material. Americans dispose of some 10 million metric tons of glass annually. International Association for Great Lakes Research / http://iaglr.org/, 1st Friday Focus on the Environment: 09/06/2019, 1st Friday Focus On The Environment: Working For Solutions To The Lake Erie Algae Blooms, Issues Of The Environment: Climate Change Is Changing Agriculture In Michigan, Issues Of The Environment: The 2019 Algae Bloom In Lake Erie Is Massive, The Glass Manufacturing Industry Council (, Single-stream recycling is less expensive than multistream recycling, where residents sort and place different types of recyclables in different bins, but Chemistry and Engineering Magazine reports, “40% of glass from single-stream collection ends up being recycled into new products, compared with about 90% of glass from multistream systems.”. Fans propel the paper labels detached during breaking through the trommel and into a paper recycling bin. Glass Recycling Creates Unemployment It has been argued that glass bottle recycling has a significant impact on employment within the glass manufacturing industry. One problem, she says, is the U.S. outsourced so much of its recycling to Asia that the domestic industry languished. Seek alternatives. Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. The challenge lies in getting the glass to these plants in the quality and condition that is actually usable. It provides many benefits to glass manufacturing. The glass recycling market is far less volatile than the plastic, paper, and electronic waste recycling markets, and there are plenty of facilities that process recycled glass into new materials. They are also really difficult for machines to separate from glass for recycling – so make sure they don’t get in there in the first place. The glass in other items might look the same as bottles and jars – but it can have significant differences, creating problems if it’s mixed with packaging glass for re-melt. Critics claim that recycling is simply a zero-sum game, where the pollutants and waste from making new goods shift into the recycling industry. When studying glass recycling, the first thing that becomes clear is that cullet is extremely useful. The amount of recycled glass containers was 3.1 million tons in 2018, for a recycling rate of 31.3 percent. For localities with single-stream recycling processes like Fairfax County, it’s an especially vexing problem. In a single stream recycling system, glass is increasingly becoming the contaminant. So why is glass no longer being accepted for recycling in many markets? How The China Ban Is Affecting Your Waste and Recycling Costs, What To Do, How To Reduce Contamination, Maintain The Value Of Your Recycling, Control Costs (In 6 Steps), Waste-Related GHG Emissions: How Waste Affects Carbon Footprint, Video Helps Train “Invisible” Cleaning Staff, Waste Audits Are Back, With Added COVID Protections, What The Pandemic Has Not Changed For Waste Management, Post-Lockdown Waste Has Changed. Some recycled glass containers are not able to be used in the manufacture of new glass bottles and jars or to make fiberglass. Many people tend to litter parks and parking lots with glass and another packaging. gets recycled in several European nations, on average. Contamination from the single-stream recycling process is so serious that only about 40% of the glass collected actually gets made into new glass products. Sioux Falls, S.D. However, when the glass is commingled with other materials in the recycling process, broken glass … Finally, cullet has a significant environmental benefit. They won’t melt in a glass furnace and will cause all sorts of problems and waste. “. Ypsilanti Department of Public Services Director. Recycling: Single-stream is cost effective, but less sustainable. Hearings began Monday at a parliamentary commission to find a solution to Quebec's glass recycling problem. Purchase less glass, especially for single-use items, and reuse when possible. And depending on how the US recycles, that processing is done relatively inefficiently compared with what happens in Europe. We have access to markets in our area, but it still costs us over $80 per ton to get glass sorted, processed and shipped to markets. In fact, 93% of residents and consumers expect to be able to recycle glass, reports the Glass Recycling Coalition. These … The problem is, if you ask people to explain what happens to their waste after they throw it in the bin, almost no American is able to answer. One of the biggest problems surrounding the recycling of glass is that it takes an ample amount of money to handle the material at landfills, according to the Wall Street Journal. So please help me with any information you may have concerning bottle recycling or contact details of glass industries that i can contact to help me. According to Pennsylvania State University’s John C. Mauro, adding cullet to the feed mixture also improves the quality of glass products. glass, the problems with recycling glass and ways to potentially expand glass recycling in Pennsylvania. Illustrated | SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons. Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, — David Fair is the WEMU News Director and host of Morning Edition on WEMU. Recycling Glass | Environmental Chemistry | Chemistry | FuseSchool Learn the basics about recycling glass as a part of environmental chemistry. Broken glass is not only a safety hazard to workers, but it can also damage machines at recycling facilities. People also tend to throw in a lot of things that shouldn’t go in the bin, such as plastic bags, batteries, light bulbs, soiled food containers, used napkins, and what Nordmeyer and others call “wish-cycling” materials. Due to the inorganic nature of glass, it will never decay. Glass is infinitely recyclable without loss in quality. Die Wiederbefüllung von Gläsern ist demgegenüber ein direkteres Verfahren der Wiederverwendung. Disadvantages of Glass Recycling. Apr 5, 2014. Well-meaning people think since those components can be recycled, they’re justified in tossing the whole thing—dirty filter, wet coffee grounds, and all—into a recycling bin. Australia's glass recycling crisis: the industry responds By Lauren Davis Wednesday, 09 August, 2017 ... (EPA) is apparently aware of the problem, recycling companies are prohibited from stockpiling large amounts of material due to limits placed by the EPA. Single-stream recycling has not only led to a problem of contamination amongst materials like cardboard, paper, and plastic, but has especially created issues where glass is considered. thrown into single-stream recycling collections actually gets recycled. As the word spreads, glass recycling may one day evolve into an easy decision for Americans to make when they have a glass product on hand. Calls have been made for Argyll and Bute’s glass recycling problems to be solved – by shrinking bottles into small pieces of glass. February 11, 2019. Multistream recycling, which is a far less common approach in the US, is simpler on the processing end. The problem with glass recyclables like jars and bottles is they frequently break during the recycling process, causing shards of glass to contaminate other more valuable reusable commodities such as plastic and paper. Heat-resistant glass, such as Pyrex or borosilicate glass , must not be part of the glass recycling stream, because even a small piece of such material will alter the viscosity of the fluid in the furnace at remelt. In Rhode Island, glass is … About 400 such facilities operate in the US, according to Rue. Getting cullet in a clean, furnace-ready form generally requires a lot of processing. Your email address will not be published. Recycling alone will likely never be enough to make up for the garbage we produce. And, he says, the recycling rate discrepancies between the US and other countries result mainly from differences in government policy and consumer education and habits. The subsidization is necessary, but it results in challenges with respect to how to effectively determine what should be recycled, and what should be dumped. Glass is one of many materials that can and should be recycled. "Glass recycling is so important. Some municipalities have simply stopped collecting glass in their curbside recycling programs. That’s not because of some intrinsic materials or chemical property that makes glass difficult to recycle. But combined in one bin, the glass often breaks into shards and embeds into the cardboard, creating something that can't be recycled… The 2019 algal bloom on Lake Erie now measures over 650-square miles and continues to expand. In these programs, consumers separate glass from other recyclables, depositing them in glass-only collection bins. Aluminum bottles have also become very popular among beer consumers in recent years. When the carbonates from limestone melt with the other materials, they release CO2. raised hauling fees largely to cover the cost of handling glass, and Pendelton, Ore., raised its garbage fees in part because recycling revenues have dropped. The process of recycling glass at an MFR relies on optical sorting by color. The report stated that recyclers are currently receiving more glass than they know what to do with — particularly in NSW, which produces about 460,000 tonnes of used glass per year. Piles of sorted glass at the recycling depot on Tan Lane, Exeter, England. Recycling Causes Increased Environmental Problems. This scheme and following Glass Container Recycling Charter are intended to increase public awareness of and participation in glass bottle recycling. There’s no other option for the glass when you factor in shipping costs.” Bauer said he was approached by the owner of the Ten Spoon Winery in Missoula about recycling glass wine bottles. Required fields are marked *. Broken glass can contaminate other recyclables like paper and cardboard, lowering their value. Some recycling companies treat glass like garbage because it can slash more valuable recyclables like cardboard and paper. But some of the problems with contaminated recycling are endemic to the process of single-sort itself, ... “The glass breaks and shards get into … For many products and packages, their recycling fate is determined long before they end up in a recycling bin. Only a very small portion of the glass that goes through the current system is large enough to be properly sorted this way. Until then, there is still work to be done. This was 4.8 percent of all MSW combustion with energy recovery that year. Here’s a breakdown of the issue, and what businesses and municipalities can do to address the problem, and potentially reduce their waste disposal costs. Glass can be recycled back into glass furnaces, but difficulties in the glassmaking operation present problems that make recycling unattractive in many cases. And as a common household item, recycling the material maintains much public support. of disposed glass. Garbage, like those products, contaminates all the recyclables in the bin, Nordmeyer says. This year, the bloom covers about 620 square miles. Making coffee the old-fashioned way is better than cycling through millions of single-use coffee pods. Recycling glass is very simple, and you can start the process by dropping the glass you have into recycling bins. Betrachtet man alleine den Energiebedarf, schneiden Einwegverpackungen aus Glas gegenüber anderen Verpackungen wie Getränkekartons oder auch PET-Flaschen schlechter ab. Mason hopes to reintroduce glass recycling to the curbside program in 2019. Summary. The Problems with U.S. Die Produktion an Flachglas in Deutschland beträgt etwa 1,5 Millionen Tonnen, hierbei ist die Recyclingmenge mit geschätzten 300 000 Tonnen aber geringer. Article Name. In this month's '1st Friday Focus on the Environment' conversation with WEMU's David Fair and Michigan League of Conservation Voters executive director Lisa Wozniak, you'll get the latest on progress and the work towards solutions that lay ahead. But while the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is apparently aware of the problem, recycling companies are prohibited from stockpiling large amounts of material due to limits placed by the EPA. Wine is still difficult, because there are fewer options for wine on draft and in cans, but that is expected to change. The total amount of combusted glass in 2018 was 1.6 million tons. Faced with high costs, some communities are paying to have the glass specially crushed for use in construction. This may be because there is too much contamination or the recycled glass pieces are too small to meet manufacturing specifications. Farmers have faced colder and wetter-than-normal conditions in the spring, and that delayed planting. Millions of individuals who would have otherwise been gainfully employed providing manpower to create new glass items lose out on this opportunity as fewer people are needed to work in glass recycling plants. Thankx. In 2018, landfills received approximately 7.6 million tons of MSW glass. According to Recycle Across America, “More than 28 billion glass bottles and jars end up in landfills every year — that is the equivalent of filling up two Empire State Buildings every three weeks.”. Broken glass can contaminate other recyclables like paper and cardboard, lowering their value. We are committed to recycling glass because our customers expect us to, and it is highly recyclable. Reply 1 Like Share David F. 2 years ago. There is a lot of glass waste around my area. Als Glas-Recycling wird das Sammeln und stoffliche Wiederverwerten von gebrauchtem Glas, zumeist als Lebensmittelverpackungen bezeichnet, wobei das Altglas eingeschmolzen wird. Glass recycling facts and statistics: Glass comes in many forms, but most consumer sources are from food containers and the like. August and September are peak months for the algae blooms that plague Lake Erie each year. By understanding these hurdles to glass recycling, GMIC, GPI, and other industry groups hope to boost the rate in the US. Cullet also helps manufacturers save on energy costs. In a single stream recycling system, glass is increasingly becoming the contaminant. Besides fiberglass or new jars and bottles, other uses for recycled glass include aggregate for asphalt or … All rights reserved Great Forest. He explains that melting cullet doesn’t release carbon dioxide or other gases that can form unwanted trapped bubbles in the glass. But some of the problems with contaminated recycling are endemic to the process of single-sort itself, said Susan Collins, executive director of the nonprofit Container Recycling Institute. The start of 2019 has brought important changes to municipal waste services across the country as they determine whether to eliminate or revamp curbside collection of glass for recycling. Even with dual-stream recycling programs and drop-off centers where materials are collected separately, glass can be a problem. Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department (EPD) introduced a glass bottle recycling scheme in Hong Kong which publicly launched 1st November 2018. To switch to multistream systems, these municipalities would need to introduce taxes or fees to meet the higher collection and handling costs. Long Island’s Problem With Recycling Glass May Have Fix In Oyster Bay April 4, 2019 at 5:08 pm Filed Under: Carolyn Gusoff , Local TV , Long Island , … But most municipalities in the US stick with single stream because the collection costs are lower than those with multistream systems. And the US’s roughly 33% glass-recycling rate, which pales compared with the 90% recycling rate in Switzerland, Germany, and other European countries, is not the result of a lack of technical know-how. Running furnaces at lower temperatures extends furnace lives and reduces operating costs and, as a result, the price of the final glass products. After several more separation steps, a device known as a glass-breaking screen removes most of the glass from the single-stream load so it can be sent to cullet suppliers, who clean it and make it furnace ready for glass manufacturers.