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For sure aluminum recycling is more cost effective than glass recycling, but I've definitely never in my life heard the suggestion that it's better to literally

For sure aluminum recycling is more cost effective than glass recycling, but I've definitely never in my life heard the suggestion that it's better to literally put glass in landfills instead... that really sounds like the kind of topsy-turvy logic you get out of a company pushing plastic. Granted this is a biased source, but they claim that "Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10% cullet used in the manufacturing process," [1] so it really seems like in principle it should be less expensive to recycle it (by a little bit) and that if it's more costly than making it fresh it's due to logistics rather than any fundamental manufacturing cost. [1] https://www.gpi.org/glass-recycling-facts https://www.gpi.org/glass-recycling-facts

brnt 5y ago
People often confuse money cost with environmental cost (at least it makes it easy to know who published the study ahem). Here in NL the monetary cost for melting glass is about 85% of sourcing new glass. So it's a small win. The envirnmental cost reduction is the raw materials saved. Beer bottles are almost all reused for a number of times though, greatly improving their environmental impact. Wish they would do the same for wine bottles.
foobarian 5y ago
Yeah looks like fully recycled glass at best requires 30% less energy input than virgin glass. And the single-stream logistics are enough to make that uneconomical, unfortunately. Aluminum recycling energy input is 95% less than smelting - that is a very nice gain, meaning you get 20x the material for the same energy cost vs. 1.42x.
- numpad0 5y ago
  Glass bottles are also 10-20x heavier for capacity than aluminum or plastic bottles, like <60% content fraction vs >95%. Absolute amounts of that recycling energy inputs are apples and oranges, but with as much as 50% mass and 25% volume worth for delivered products having to be recovered in order for glass bottles to be recycled, or even reused, I can't picture microscopic oranges here.
  - neltnerb 5y ago
    Yes, glass and metal packaging are appropriate in different use cases and glass is much heavier than either plastic or metal. We're not really trying to find the one true packaging material right? Some are better than others depending on the context. Glass is pretty amazing material but weight is not where it holds an advantage, nor in tensile strength. Edit: Heck, even steel versus aluminum depends on the situation. Cans of stuff are usually steel still while beverages are almost always aluminum.
notatoad 5y ago
>That really sounds like the kind of topsy-turvy logic you get out of a company pushing plastic or just the topsy-turvy logic of a system that generally ignores the true cost of landfills. When throwing stuff out costs an amount that rounds to $0, systems will prioritize that.

brnt 5y ago

People often confuse money cost with environmental cost (at least it makes it easy to know who published the study ahem). Here in NL the monetary cost for melting glass is about 85% of sourcing new glass. So it's a small win. The envirnmental cost reduction is the raw materials saved. Beer bottles are almost all reused for a number of times though, greatly improving their environmental impact. Wish they would do the same for wine bottles.

foobarian 5y ago

Yeah looks like fully recycled glass at best requires 30% less energy input than virgin glass. And the single-stream logistics are enough to make that uneconomical, unfortunately. Aluminum recycling energy input is 95% less than smelting - that is a very nice gain, meaning you get 20x the material for the same energy cost vs. 1.42x.

numpad0 5y ago
Glass bottles are also 10-20x heavier for capacity than aluminum or plastic bottles, like <60% content fraction vs >95%. Absolute amounts of that recycling energy inputs are apples and oranges, but with as much as 50% mass and 25% volume worth for delivered products having to be recovered in order for glass bottles to be recycled, or even reused, I can't picture microscopic oranges here.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  Yes, glass and metal packaging are appropriate in different use cases and glass is much heavier than either plastic or metal. We're not really trying to find the one true packaging material right? Some are better than others depending on the context. Glass is pretty amazing material but weight is not where it holds an advantage, nor in tensile strength. Edit: Heck, even steel versus aluminum depends on the situation. Cans of stuff are usually steel still while beverages are almost always aluminum.

notatoad 5y ago

>That really sounds like the kind of topsy-turvy logic you get out of a company pushing plastic or just the topsy-turvy logic of a system that generally ignores the true cost of landfills. When throwing stuff out costs an amount that rounds to $0, systems will prioritize that.