Chapter 11 - Glass Waste

Abstract

This chapter explores the environmental issues arising from glass production and consumption. Glass is in the background of the daily lives of most people. The potential for glass recycling comes largely from the container and flat glass sectors, because of their dominance in terms of mass, and their relatively uniform chemical composition, with soda lime–silica glass accounting for virtually all the container and flat glass produced. The main environmental impacts in glass making are the high-energy use in batch melting, and the resultant gaseous emissions from fuel combustion and the heat reaction of components of the batch mix. The core challenge for environmentally and cost-effective recycling of container glass arises from the dispersed nature of its sources, principally households, and the consequent need for an environmentally and cost-effective infrastructure providing for its color separation, collection, and transportation to processors to produce furnace ready feedstock. In assessing the scope for increasing the amount of glass recycled, there is an overall need to quantify the resultant energy and other environmental burdens to allow valid comparisons to be made with the burdens of using virgin feedstock.