April 18, 2014 – 4 Days until Earth Day…
Recycling one glass bottle or jar saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb for four hours or run a computer for 30 minutes
- The United States throws away enough glass every week to fill a 1,350-foot building.
- Americans generated 11.6 million tons of glass in the municipal solid waste (MSW) stream in 2012.
- About 28 percent of the glass was recovered for recycling.
- Glass recycling increased from 750,000 tons in 1980 to more than three million tons in 2012.
- Glass takes 1,000,000 years to fully degrade in a landfill.
- Glass, especially glass food and beverage containers, can be recycled over and over again. In fact, 90 percent of recycled glass is used to make new containers.
- Food, soft drink, beer, food, wine, and liquor containers represent the largest source of glass generated and recycled.
- Glass in durable goods, such as furniture and appliances, round out the sources of postconsumer glass.
- In 2012, 41% of beer and soft drink bottles were recovered for recycling, according to the U.S. EPA. Another 34% of wine and liquor bottles and 15% of food and other glass jars were recycled.
- In total, 34.1% of all glass containers were recycled, equivalent to taking 210,000 cars off the road each year.
- States with container deposit legislation have an average glass container recycling rate of just over 63%, while non-deposit states only reach about 24%.
- About 18% of beverages are consumed on premise, like a bar, restaurant, or hotel. Glass makes up to about80% of that container mix.
- In 2008, NC passed a law requiring all Alcohol Beverage Permit holders to recycle their beverage containers. Since then, they have boosted the amount of glass bottles recovered for recycling from about 45,000 tons/year before the ABC law to more than 86,000 tons in 2011.
One ton of recycled glass saves:
- 42 kWh of electricity
- 5 gallons of oil
- 714.3 Btu’s of energy
- 2 cubic yards of landfill space
- 7.5 pounds of air pollutants from being released
- 1,330 pounds of sand
- 433 pounds of soda ash
- 433 pounds of limestone
- 151 pounds of feldspar
- Recycling glass takes 30% of the energy required to produce glass from raw materials
- Glass bottles have been reduced in weight by more than 50% between 1970 and 2000
- Recycled glass is substituted for up to 95% of raw materials
- Manufacturers benefit from recycling in several ways—it reduces emissions and consumption of raw materials, extends the life of plant equipment, such as furnaces, and saves energy
- Recycling 1,000 tons of glass creates slightly over 8 jobs
Acts of Green
- Glass containers for food and beverages are 100% recyclable, but not with other types of glass.
- Non-container glass like that used to make windows, mirrors and drinking glasses is often treated with chemicals, so these items all have different melting points. This means you will not be able to recycle non-container glass in your curbside recycling and will need to seek out alternatives.
- Earth911 features a recycling center locator for all forms glass.
- Unbroken glass bottles and jars should be placed in the blue recycling bins.
- Depending on where you live, you may need to separate the glass containers by color.
- If your curbside recycling program requires you to separate glass by color, though, be sure to do so because colored glass will be used to make more glass of a similar color, and mixing colors could cause contamination.
- Currently, 10 states have bottle bills: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont. Generally speaking, bottle bills require deposits on beverage containers at the time of purchase, and then individuals can receive all or part of this deposit back by returning the bottles for recycling. Typically, individuals will receive five or 10 cents back for each qualifying bottle returned to a participating retail store or recycling center.
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