Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!

The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.

A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -and even longer if it’s in the landfill.

Mining and transporting raw materials for glass produces about 385 pounds of waste for every ton of glass that is made. If recycled glass is substituted for half of the raw materials, the waste is cut by more than 80%.

Made From Recycled

Recycled glass can be used to make a wide range of everyday products and some that are completely unexpected, including:

• New bottles and jars.
• ‘Processed sand’ – finely ground glass used in golf course bunkers.
• ‘Glassphalt’ for road surfacing.

How to Recycle Glass?

Glass is collected from our kerbside or recycling banks by local authorities or waste management companies.

Once the glass is collected it is then:

• Taken to be reprocessed.
• It’s then crushed and contaminants are removed (mechanised colour sorting is usually undertaken at this stage if required).
• It’s now mixed with the raw materials and melted in a furnace.
• The melted material is moulded or blown into new bottles or jars.

And remember recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil enough water for five cups of tea!

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