What Is Glass Recycling?
Glass recycling is the process of taking waste glass products such as bottles and jars discarded by bars and restaurants and turning them into new and useful glass materials/products.
How Is Glass Recycled?
For commercial business waste, glass is stored in its own dedicated bin before being transported to a treatment facility. At the facility, it is crushed into cullets and washed to remove any contaminants. Often, at this point, the glass is also separated by colour by a machine process if necessary.
The clean crushed glass is then mixed with new materials to either enhance the colour or strength or other properties of the glass. This mixture is then melted in an industrial furnace which can then be put into appropriate moulds or blown into new bottles or jars.
How Your Business Can Recycle Glass
For your business to be able to start recycling your glass waste you will first need to have a dedicated glass bin. Your bin does not have to be anything special it just needs to be used solely for glass waste. You can often get a bin delivered to your address by a waste management service company.
Once you have this bin, you need to inform all your employees about it and stress how only glass can go in there and that glass should not be put into any alternative bin. If you have a large workforce you may consider making it part of staff training. If not then using communication channels such as email, posters and team meetings will suffice.
Then, you can arrange for your glass waste bin to be collected as frequently as you need it by organising a collection schedule with your waste management service. This service will pickup your bin and empty it into their trucks and return your empty bin to you.
This glass waste will then be transported to an appropriate facility where the glass recycling process can be carried out.
Why Is Glass Recycling Important?
Almost all of the glass used to make products like bottles can be fully recycled because the material does not depreciate. So it is a complete waste if the glass bottles are not processed for recycling and finite materials will have to be used up to produce more.
Glass, in theory, is 100% recyclable and so if we improve our glass recycling output then we will be able to conserve non-renewable fossil fuel materials and reduce the amount of harmful gasses which are released into the atmosphere.
To get your business on the right track for your glass recycling then contact us today for a free quote and waste advice. Or simply fill in the quick and easy quote form below to get a free quote.