Information About:
Glass - Bottles and Jars
Glass containers are used to package beverage and food products. Glass can be recycled repeatedly with no loss of quality.
Preparation:
- Rinse and remove all caps or foil from the container. Metal lids can be recycled with other metal containers. Throw plastic caps away.
- Combine with other beverage containers.
- Do not place glass in plastic bags.
- Ceramic cups
- Cosmetic bottles
- Crystal
- Dishes
- Drinking glasses
- Light bulbs
- Mirrors
- Ovenware, including Pyrex glass
- Opaque, white rum, black wine, and green beer bottles with ceramic tops
- Window glass
Cosmetic bottles and other glass products such as window glass, fiberglass, and glassware use different manufacturing processes and additives than container glass and are not recyclable with container glass.
Why Recycle Glass?- Recycling 1 ton of glass saves 1,330 pounds of sand, 433 pounds of soda ash, 433 pounds of limestone, and 151 pounds of feldspar – equal to over 1 ton of natural resources.
- Glass recycling saves 25 to 32 percent of the energy used to make new glass and reduces related air pollution by 20 percent and water pollution by 50 percent.
- The energy saved from recycling 1 glass bottle is enough to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.
What are glass food and beverage containers made into?
Old food and beverage containers are crushed into a material called cullet and made into new food and beverage containers. At the processing facility, glass is sorted by color prior to recycling. The clear glass is used for clear containers, green glass for green containers and brown glass for brown containers. New glass is made from sand, limestone, soda ash, crushed bottles/jars called cullet, and various additives, including those used to color bottles brown, green or blue.
In the metro area, there are two main markets for glass. Strategic Materials is a glass processor that sorts mixed glass into various colors to be made into new glass products. Anchor Glass Container Corporation in Shakopee makes new bottles our of the clear glass and has for over 100 years at this location.
Manufacturers reduced the weight of glass bottles by more than 50 percent between 1970 and 2000.
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