By Beverly Saltonstall

You just consumed a pretty normal lunch; a sandwich and a bottle of soda pop served on a paper plate. When you are finished, you throw everything in the garbage for a quick clean up. You were probably aware that the paper plate and the paper napkin were biodegradable and that eventually they would decompose and return to the soil. But were you aware that the soda pop bottle you threw out in the garbage will be in the landfill a million years from now?

Putting that into perspective, man appeared on earth 100,000 years ago and recorded history only goes back 10,000 years. The decision not to recycle that glass will impact an earth that none of us can even imagine.

Is Recycling worth the effort? Most definately. Glass recycling has many more pros than cons, and glass recycling is popular for many reasons.

80 percent of the recycled glass is used to produce new glass containers.

Glass can be recycled indefinitely to make new glass.

Making new glass bottles from recycled glass uses less energy and creates less pollution.

It is non toxic and will not contaminate our environment even if it does end up in a landfill.

There is a rapid turnaround time. Within a month of recycling that soda pop bottle can be back on the shelves as another glass product.

Some glass products have a bottle-deposit law and may give you cash for beverage containers you return.

In most cases, the cost of curbside recycling is less than that of trash collection.

Recycled glass needs less heat to process into new glass, so the furnaces last longer.

While there are many positive reasons for recycling glass, there are also negatives.

There are high costs involved in transporting the recycled glass to the re-manufacturing plant.

Consumers often add non-recyclable glass to the recyclable glass resulting in a less that pure product.

Much of the glass is used in commercial establishments is not recycled and ends up in landfills.

Glass must be sorted into colors to be recycled.

In order to keep the recycled glass pure, high costs are involved in purchasing machinery that will detect contaminants such as ‘Pyrex’ and will sort the processed glass according to color.

Glass is used for a number of other products such as mirrors, Pyrex brand cookware, light bulbs, countertops and flooring materials. None of these products can be used to recycle glass, and if mixed with recyclable glass, will contaminate the final product.

Overall, glass recycling is beneficial. It saves resources and the environment, and since glass does not biodegrade, recycling will keep it out of the landfills where it will last forever.

Even if the cost of recycling is more than the cost of trash removal, we can’t continue to fill our planet with trash. Eventually we will run out of room! Finding ways to reduce the amount of glass we use, reuse the glass that we do use for other purposes, and when we do dispose of the glass, be sure to recycle.

About the Author: Beverly Saltonstall is an environmental writer. Visit

totalrecyclingwebsite.com

for news, podcasts, articles and guides covering many aspects of recycling. To understand recycling, read Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Recycling, But Never Dared to Ask. (available on website)

Source:

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