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10 green bottles

Where all the bottles go !

In the United Kingdom, the waste recycling industry cannot consume all of the recycled container glass that will become available over the coming years, mainly due to the colour imbalance between that which is manufactured and that which is consumed. The UK imports much more green glass in the form of wine bottles than it uses, leading to a surplus amount for recycling.

The resulting surplus of green glass from imported bottles may be exported to producing countries, or used locally in the growing diversity of secondary end uses for recycled glass.^[5] Cory Environmental are presently shipping glass cullet from the UK to Portugal.^[6]

The use of the recycled glass as aggregate in concrete has become popular in modern times, with large scale research being carried out at Columbia University in New York. This greatly enhances the aesthetic appeal of the concrete. Recent research findings have shown that concrete made with recycled glass aggregates have shown better long term strength and better thermal insulation due to its better thermal properties of the glass aggregates.^[7] Secondary markets for glass recycling may include:

Glass in ceramic sanitary ware production
Glass as a flux agent in brick manufacture
Glass in astroturf and related applications (e.g. top dressing, root zone) material or golf bunker sand
Glass in recycled glass countertops
Glass as water filtration media
Glass as an abrasive
Glass as an aggregate

Glass aggregate, a mix of colors crushed to a small size, is substituted for many construction and utility projects in place of pea gravel or crushed rock, oftentimes saving municipalities like the City of Tumwater, Washington Public Works, thousands of dollars (depending on the size of the project). Glass aggregate is not sharp to handle. In many cases, the state Department of Transportation has specifications for use, size and percentage of quantity for use. Common applications are as pipe bedding--placed around sewer, storm water or drinking water pipes to transfer weight from the surface and protect the pipe. Another common use would be as fill to bring the level of a concrete floor even with a foundation.

Mixed waste streams may be collected from materials recovery facilities or mechanical biological treatment systems. Some facilities can sort out mixed waste streams into different colours using electro-optical sorting units.

Thanks to Wikipedia and green bottles everywhere.

Bottle Crushers and the future

The Future of Glass: New York City

As the rate of glass recycling increases, glass crushers will play an increasingly more important role for MRF operators and processors everywhere. According to Andela Products, “Glass recycling has an exciting future. We’ve just begun to explore how this resource can pay off.”

If the glass that can be recovered from the recycling stream was substituted for aggregate (like limestone for example), a well-run high volume MRF has as much commercial value as a traditional limestone quarry. A MRF would have a continual supply of aggregate however, as apposed to the quarry that is mined and gone.

To put things in perspective, it is estimated that over 4,000 tons of recyclable glass is discarded in New York City alone - every week. That’s an annual resource pool of over 416,000,000 pounds of available raw material - from a single metropolitan area. On a national basis, there are hundreds of these “urban mines” representing an inexhaustible supply of recyclable glass. Through additional research, new applications for recycled glass are created and tested every year.

The markets are there. To boost the rate of glass recycling, MRF operators need to partner with private contractors and aggregate producers (or users) to get their raw material “out of the pit” and into the consumers of specialty aggregates.

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