There's no reason to recycle glass. The planet is made of it. Almost every rock you see around you can be melted into glass.
And it's completely harmless if thrown out. At most crush it first.
The only thing worth recycling is metal.
And it's completely harmless if thrown out. At most crush it first.
The only thing worth recycling is metal.
It's worthwhile to recycle glass.
Recycling of glass containers saves some energy, but not a signifcant quantity compared to reuse. The primary energy saved is about 2.2 x 10^6 Btu/ton, or 13% of the energy required to make glass containers from virgin raw materials. This estimate includes energy required for the entire product life cycle, starting with raw materials in the ground and ending with either final waste disposition in a landfill or recycled materal collection, processing, and return to the primary manufacturing process. The actual savings depend on local factors, including population density; locations of landfills, recovery facilities, and glass plants; and process efficiencies at the specifc facilities available. The savings increase if wastes must be transported long distances to a landfill or if the containers are made in an inefficient furnace. They decrease if there is no local MRF or glass plant, or if material losses in the recycling loop are high. If the MRF is as much as 100 mi away, savings from recycling are negated.
Sand is apparently in shorter (not short) supply. Oil isn’t. I think it’s a different world than the 1994 article you link to
1) Oil was less expensive, inflation-adjusted, in 1994 than it is today ($30/bbl) 2) Only very specific sand is in short supply today (construction and fracking sand, neither of which is fungible with arbitrary sand) 3) Glass is made of natural gas.
As evidence: In general no one actually remelts recycled glass. Recycled glass is crushed and spread on top of landfills each night to prevent rodents from being active, and to reduce dust and pollution.
That's still considered "recycled". And this is after transporting and sorting! And yet they still don't bother remelting it.
"Seal holes in foundations of buildings or entrances to rat burrows with a minimum of 2 in. (5 cm) of reinforced mortar mixed with iron filings (from machine shops) or broken glass pieces 1/8 in. to 1/2 in. (0.3 cm to 1.3 cm) long. (You can put some glass in a tough paper bag and smash it with a hammer. Shake out the broken glass pieces into the mortar as you are mixingi t.) The glass or the filings deters rats from digging the filled holes out again before the mortar hardens."
"Common Sense Pest Control" by Olkowski pg. 633
Clear glass has value, while green and brown tinted glass has much less value.
“Glass recycling” takes all forms though, so now you have to sort optically, which has mixed results, or settle for “all recycled glass is now going to be brown glass”
That doesn’t even get into the part of how dangerous broken glass can be for workers along the recycling supply chain.
I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to recycle glass or not, but I do know it should be questioned rather than assumed to be an absolute benefit.