Do you only think of recycling in terms of paper and plastic? Unlike paper, glass can be recycled over and over again throughout the end of time.
Glass containers are 100 percent recyclable. Another great statistic is that the majority of recycled and recovered glass is used as the main ingredient in new glass containers that are being made around the country.
According to statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, nearly 80 percent of the recovered and recycled glass containers in the United States are made into new glass bottles within the United States.
In most communities residents can drop off their glass products such as jars and bottles at different and various locations. The glass is then collected and shipped to another company where the glass products such as jars and bottles are then melted.
The melted products can be turned into anything really but most recently communities are turning the melted glass into fiberglass insulation.
It is important to know how to separate the glass products such as jars and bottles that you want to recycle. For example, clear glass and brown and green glass products can be recycled together; therefore they can be mixed together in the bins. Once the glass products are separated into their respected bins they can then be processed and crushed into a material called cullet.
Cullet is then used to make insulation. Depending on community involvement, some communities and recycling companies around the country are estimating they will be able to produce up to five tons of cullet each hour.
Also important to remember are the products that are not part of the glass product recycling program. Some of these products are plate glass, wine bottles, Pyrex and ceramic.
There are some scary statistics that should motivate us to start recycling our glass products. For example did you know that 22 percent of the glass in the United States was recovered for recycling? And there were 10.9 million tons of glass recovered for recycling. Also, in the United States alone there was 10.9 million tons of glass generated in 2001 alone.
Additionally, there are certain materials that round out the sources of postconsumer glass. Some of these materials are durable goods like appliances, furniture and consumer electronics.
Think about it this way, the glass bottle that you are drinking your soda pop out of today may very well (if we are lucky!) be holding your spaghetti sauce tomorrow.
