Recycling
< ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
Solids - Assorted Others
(Current Recycling Technology and Processes)
Glass Recycling Process  (Page 1)
Go to Page 2
Glass is made of cheap and abundant materials (such as sand, limestone, and potash) and yet people are encouraged to recycle glass.  So although recycling glass is the least finite of non-renewable resources, recycling glass still has many benefits to our community.  Some of these benefits are: it reduces pollution, conserves landfill space, and it reduces energy consumption.  In order to understand the impact that recycling glass actually has on our environment, we have extracted from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources a short list of facts about how recycling glass benefits us.

- Making glass from recycled cullet uses half the energy it takes to make glass from sand, limestone, and potash.
- The energy saved by recycling one glass container can light a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
- Making glass from recycled cullet reduces air pollution by 20% and water pollution by 50%.
- Recycling also means less mining and mine waste.  Each ton of recycled glass reduces mining waste by 500 pounds.
- Because recycled cullet melts at a lower temperature and is less corrosive than the raw materials that make glass, glass recycling actually prolongs the useful life of melting furnaces.

As we can conclude from this short list of facts, recycling glass definitely has a positive effect on our environment and on us.

For a complete list of today's recyclable glass materials, please visit our section Current Recyclable Materials - Glass.

The glass recycling process can be summarized into seven general different steps.
Figure: Step 1.
[Courtesy of: Visy Recycling.]

Step 1: Glass Delivery
Once the collected glass is received at the facility, a hopper using a front-end loader (or any other machine with similar characteristics) will pick up the glass and transport it for decontamination.
Figure: Step 2.
[Courtesy of: Visy Recycling.]

Step 2: Decontamination
Now that the glass is in the decontamination step, a magnet will remove the metal contaminants mixed in the glass.  Other contaminants such as ceramic, stone, and porcelain are removed by hand by a trained employee.
Figure: Step 3.
[Courtesy of: Visy Recycling.]

Step 3: Separation
After the glass has been decontaminated, it is now time to separate large pieces from the smaller pieces.  In this step, the glass will pass through a large vibrating screen that will ultimately separate the large bottles and large glass pieces from the smaller mixed particles (also known as cullet).
Figure: Step 4.
[Courtesy of: Visy Recycling.]

Step 4: Quality Control
All the glass that was considered whole bottles and large pieces will be sent through another sorting process and through an automated contaminant removal.  After these two additional steps, the glass is finally ready to be deposited into bunkers and ready for transportation for the next step.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
QUICK LINKS (Specific Table of Contents):

Section I: Introduction
Section II: Present (YOU ARE CURRENTLY IN THIS SECTION)
Section III: Future
Links:
Home
Complete Table of Contents
Reference