3 ms·
> Which makes no sense, glass is infinitely recyclable, yet it is not, it is instead brought to the local dump. It's reusable, sure. Glass milk bottles you re
by phil21 3y ago
> Which makes no sense, glass is infinitely recyclable, yet it is not, it is instead brought to the local dump.
It's reusable, sure. Glass milk bottles you return to be washed and refilled are great.
Glass recycling though makes little sense in many areas of the world. You are basically trucking sand around. Just far less efficiently. Glass takes about 40% less energy to melt than sand does, so you need to have a relatively efficient recycling supply chain to make up for that.
I haven't looked into it for over a decade, but the RoEI on that was exceedingly negative for my locality when I did.
- donatj 3y agoYes, but https://theweek.com/news/science-health/960931/why-is-the-world-running-out-of-sand https://theweek.com/news/science-health/960931/why-is-the-wo...
- 0xffff2 3y agoI only skimmed this particular article, but the problem it discusses isn't relevant to glass, in which the particle shape doesn't matter. Am I missing something that makes it relevant?
- abdullahkhalids 3y ago> Glass takes about 40% less energy to melt than sand does Energy is not the only metric. We need metrics to roughly quantify ecological destruction due to mining, and account for those in our calculations.
- xyzzyz 3y agoMining sand for glass is really negligible environmental destruction. Extra energy needed for recycling vs fresh glass has worse environmental impact.
- khrbrt 3y agoMining sand has terrible effects on riverine ecosystems. You can't just use the sand at the beach.
- Dylan16807 3y agoFor bottle purposes, why can't you use basically any sand? Assume the bottles don't have to be super clear.