Benefits of Glass Recycling: Why Recycle Glass?
Glass Recycling is Efficient and Sustainable; Saves Energy and Natural Resources
By Larry West, About.com GuideDate: N/A
Glass recycling is both simple and beneficial. Let’s start with the benefits of glass recycling:
Glass recycling is good for the environment.. A glass bottle that is sent to a landfill can take up to a million years to break down. By contrast, it takes as little as 30 days for a recycled glass bottle to leave your kitchen recycling bin and appear on a
Glass recycling is sustainableGlass containers are 100-percent recyclable, which means they can be recycled repeatedly, again and again, with no loss of purity or quality in the glass.
Glass recycling is efficient.. Recovered glass from glass recycling is the primary ingredient in all new glass containers. A typical glass container is made of as much as 70 percent recycled glass. According to industry estimates, 80 percent of all recycled glass eventually ends up as new glass containers.
Glass recycling conserves natural resources. Every ton of glass that is recycled saves more than a ton of the raw materials needed to create new glass, including: 1,300 pounds of sand; 410 pounds of soda ash; and 380 pounds of limestone.
Glass recycling saves energy. Making new glass means heating sand and other substances to a temperature of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit, which requires a lot of energy and creates a lot of industrial pollution. One of the first steps in glass recycling is to crush the glass and create a product called “cullet.” Making recycled glass products from cullet consumes 40 percent less energy than making new glass from raw materials, because cullet melts at a much lower temperature.
Recycled glass is useful. Because glass is made from natural materials such as sand and limestone, it glass containers have a low rate of chemical interaction with their contents. As a result, glass can be safely reused. Besides serving as the primary ingredient in new glass containers, recycled glass also has many other commercial uses—from creating
Glass recycling is also simple, as I pointed out at the beginning of this article. It’s simple because glass is one of the easiest materials to recycle. For one thing, glass is accepted by almost all curbside
If you need an extra incentive to recycle glass, how about this: Several U.S. states offer cash refunds for most glass bottles, so in some areas glass recycling can actually put a little extra money in your pocket.
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| This is a logo that shows recycling, though it puts a specific emphasis on recycling glass. |
Special Topic Page
My special topic that I uniquely choose will be entitled "Cold Carolina" because of our already cold and snowing winter.
Long before winter, even in the fall, sub-20 temperatures struck North Carolina, and even snow began to appear. I in my life haven't seen so many instances of snow occur, and its only mid-Janurary! This could last for quite a while. The fact that I can include North Carolina and snow in a Special Topic portion of a science project, it really goes to show you how much snow we have received this winter.
It's quite impressive what has happened. The fact that North Carolina, but not only them but other states have had just winters, just goes to show you what weather can do. How it can change and how differating that it is. Weather is just an everchanging process, and it once again has prooved that this winter in North Carolina.
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| An example of what we might be seeing the rest of this winter |
Sources:
http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/benefits_of_glass_recycling.htm - About.com
The entire article is from here. Thanks to Larry West, he receives all credit for this article.
