GLASS

A HARD, BRITTLE SUBSTANCE, TYPICALLY TRANSPARENT OR TRANSLUCENT
 

Glass is made from all natural materials. It is created by heating sand, sodium carbonate, and lime to extreme temperatures, then rapidly cooling and molding it to the desired shape based on the end use.

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Glass is infinitely recyclable.  It does not lose quality or purity when recycled properly.  Using one ton of recycled glass cullet instead of virgin materials conserves over a ton of natural resources.  Using recycled glass also offers substantial cost and energy savings to manufacturers.

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Glass is recycled by sorting it by color and type, crushing it into cullet of various sizes (sometimes as small as sand), and shipping the cullet to an end user where it is processed further according to their desired use.  The top uses for recycled glass are glass bottles and containers, fiberglass, reflective beading or roadway paving, abrasives for blasting, fillers, and tile.

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Despite being a safer alternative than some other product packaging materials, glass is not always the first choice for product packaging because it is comparatively heavy (as compared to aluminum or plastic) and is therefore more costly to transport.  Additionally, while glass is infinitely recyclable, many materials recovery facilities don’t include glass in their collection programs because it is not financially feasible to recycle unless there are local glass processors nearby.  According to the Glass Packaging Institute, altogether in the U.S. about one third of potentially recyclable glass gets recycled.

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