The first materials to be widely recycled in the UK were glass and concrete, which have both been used for thousands of years. The first bottle bank was built in Barnsley in 1977, and since then they’ve become common at-home recycling centres, supermarkets, and car parks.
The majority of local authorities now collect glass in your curbside recycling collection. It’s likely that you’ll have to distribute it into a separate container, or that you’ll be able to toss it in with your other garbage in a wheeled bin.
Reuse Your Glass
Before deciding whether to recycle any item, it’s a good idea to think about whether it can be utilized again. Recycling still consumes a lot of energy, and a reused item conserves even more natural resources than a recycled one.
Glass is a wonderful material for recycling; it has previously been used to make milk bottles that were delivered by the milkman or returned to a shop for a deposit, among other things. Glass is also simple to sterilize for re-use since it can withstand high temperatures.
What Can You Recycle of Your Glass Items?
So, if you can’t return your glass products for a second or third time, what are your options?
Jars (e.g. jam, marmalade, sauces, pickles, dips, chutney) and glass bottles are both recyclable items (e.g. soda, beer, wine, spirits, oil). You may recycle any type of glass, including transparent, brown, amber, blue, or green glass. You can also recycle toiletry jars made of clear glass.
How To Recycle Your Unwanted Glass Things
Before recycling, make sure your glass bottles and jars are clean and dry. This will not only assist your recycling facility but will also prevent them from moulding or attracting animals or insects while they’re in your recycle bin.
Glass Items That You Should Not Recycle
Non-recyclable items that should not be placed in the recycling bin include cookware and other products manufactured from toughened glass, for example:
- Anything made of Pyrex or similar
- Drinking glasses
- Window glass
- Nail varnish bottles
- Light bulbs
What Should I Do With Broken Glass?
What should you do if you break a reusable bottle or jar? The aluminium cans should be wrapped in newspaper and placed with your household trash, where they will end up in a landfill. However, I’ve seen it suggested that you may take the damaged item to a bottle bank since anything you put in a bottle bank will shatter when you insert it into the bottle bank.
If you do so, I recommend putting gloves on and carefully wrapping the object while transporting it to the bottle bank. For future instances, consider using plastic drink glasses from Drinkstuff to avoid any nasty injuries or mess.
How Is Glass Recycling Done?
Glass is a fantastic material that may be recycled countless times with very little loss of quality, unlike plastic or paper.
Broken glass bottles and jars are crushed into a powder known as cullet. Another possible use of the ceramic press is to make new glass bottles or jars. The melted material may be remade into a new glass bottle or jar. During recycling, coloured glass jars will remain green, so the green glass would be recycled into a green product instead. This is why you must sort your bottles at the bottle bank.
