Glass is a low-polluting material that is made from silica, however, recycling glass allows to reduce the negative environmental impact that occurs when extracting the raw material to produce it and the different production processes of glass containers. . I invite you to know some ways of How Glass is Recycled.
How Glass is Recycled
Glass Recycling helps reduce the amount of glass waste from landfills or garbage dumps, this allows savings in the use of raw material to manufacture new glass containers and energy because the time and steps of the production processes of glasses are reduced, which are advantages with respect to the manufacture of glass, fulfilling all the steps of the production process from the origin, that is, from silica sand, lime and caustic soda.
It should be noted that Recycled Glass can be reused and recycled again. This material can be recycled many times without losing its quality and properties. In a production process of glass containers from recycled glass, it means a 60% energy saving for its production, it also reduces its economic costs of production, and it also helps to reduce environmental pollution by reducing waste. sent to waste treatment plants and landfills and therefore reduces the consumption of raw materials.
Recycled Glass can produce new glass containers similar to those that were thrown away or discarded. Recycled Glass is used to produce new containers to store food, disinfectants, perfumes, oils, creams and other products and a small portion is used in the production of materials such as bricks, asphalt, ceramics and other construction materials.
To produce containers from Recycled Glass saves 26% of energy expenditure, with respect to the production of glass from scratch. Reduces 20% of polluting gas emissions into the atmosphere during the production of recycled glass. Water pollution decreases by 40%, which results in saving about 1,2 kilos of raw material, each ton of glass that is recycled reduces 315 kilograms of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere while the non-recycled glass.
Where do I find glass waste?
In each one's house you can find glass containers that are going to be discarded and that you paid for when you went to the supermarket. There are glass containers for colognes and perfumes, for creams, for food and beverages. Glass waste is also produced in bars, cafes, hotels, public events, industries, beverage factories and other private and public places.
Recycling Procedure
To carry out the recycling process, it begins with the separation of the different glass containers and, among the glasses, they can also be separated by their color and their compatibility. As is the case with heat-resistant glass such as Pyrex or borosilicate glass containers, they must be separated from other types of glass and therefore should not be placed in the same glass recycling container. What happens is that a single piece of Pyrex glass can alter the viscosity properties of the fluid in the furnace, when the mixture is melted.
Once the glasses of different chemical composition have been separated, the glass containers are classified and separated depending on their color, separating colored, blue, green, amber or brown and colorless glass containers. Then the containers are checked and the metal and plastic lids and labels or other accessories made of different materials other than glass are separated.
Then, the glass is cleaned and collected until it is taken to the recycling company. Upon arrival at this company, the glass is crushed until it becomes a coarse powder, which they call it by the name of "calcín" this to be placed in the oven at high temperatures is mixed and melted together with the sand, sodium hydroxide and limestone, resulting in a product with the same characteristics of glass made from raw material extracted from nature.
Why Recycle Glass
Glass is a material that takes more than 4.000 years to degrade due to being made from minerals such as silica. It can be said that they are low-polluting containers by their nature, however their production process does generate high environmental pollution and that is why campaigns are carried out for their reuse and recycling.
Products made of glass can be recycled unlimitedly without changing their composition and quality. Knowing the benefits of using glass containers to package their products, some companies place on their labels that they are returnable containers. This allows them to save in the production process and contribute to environmental conservation, because the glass containers, after going through some specific cleaning processes, can be recovered in their entirety to reuse them, in this way the steps in the production process are avoided. to break and melt glass.
Less use of raw material
Due to this, when the Glass enters a Recycling process, the production cost of new containers is reduced and the energy expense involved in the production of glass containers from the extraction of silica in nature is also lower. The energy process of producing glass containers involves the extraction of silica sand, limestone and sodium carbonate from a hill at around 1.500 °C. By omitting this step, energy expenditure can be reduced by 23% when the containers are recycled. of glass and new containers are produced from Recycled Glass.
Avoid throwing away glass containers
Due to the slow process of degradation of containers made from glass, landfills are full of glass containers that remain in these ecosystems for a long time, polluting the environment. This is why it is suggested to Recycle Glass, and carry out a selective separation of these containers before reaching the garbage, to take it to the places where it is being recycled and reincorporate it into a new production process.
Generate new jobs
By making the decision to Recycle Glass and selectively separate glass containers before throwing them in the trash, to take them to deposits or containers identified with the word glass and are green in color (following international recycling regulations). This sets in motion a process that generates new jobs that are used to monitor and form part of a Glass Recycling treatment, where the material must be transferred to these recycling plants. Also, people who recycle generate an income by separating the glass for recycling.
Glass Reuse
The words Recycling and Reuse cause confusion, recycling is when a new glass container is produced from a discarded or residual glass container. On the other hand, reuse is when you give a new use to containers that were produced to package creams, perfumes, colognes, food, drinks and others. How glass can be reused, here are some examples.
- Vases or vases. The bottle and glass container are washed and used as a vase or vase, they can paint it with an ecological paint, this can be done at home with their children. This helps to elaborate according to your creativity, beautiful flowers and then, once finished, go to look for flowers.
- Kitchen containers. Jars of jams, mayonnaise or other foods can be reused to store other kinds of food. Depending on their size, you can collect them and arrange them to store sweets and candies and give them to family and friends. You can also use it to store buttons and threads. To store food such as condiments, nuts and others. This will allow you to tidy up the kitchen or give home-made details.
- They can be used as decorative elements when placing aromatic candles, the candles must be in accordance with the size of the container or bottle and the hole so that the candle is well held.
- Piggy bank or Piggy bank. You can select a glass container to store the cash that you have left over in the allowance for the week, establish a purpose to save, for example a new story book, buy ice cream, a gift for your parents' birthday and brother or friends.
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