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Most people aren't aware that the difference in energy efficiency between glass and aluminum recycling is enormous. Here are some choice quotes from National G
by midas 13y ago
Most people aren't aware that the difference in energy efficiency between glass and aluminum recycling is enormous. Here are some choice quotes from National Geographic...
"each 10 percent of cullet in the mix reduces the energy required to make new [glass] containers by 2 to 3 percent"
At 70% cullet (the max), that's only 14-21% in energy savings for glass.
"creating an aluminum can out of recycled materials requires only 5 percent as much energy as creating a brand new can from bauxite ore"
That's 95% energy savings for aluminum. Big difference!
Source: http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/energy-recycle-glass-bottles-vs-aluminum-cans-vs-plastic-2376.html http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/energy-recycle-gla...
- Dylan16807 13y agoThat's because glass doesn't take a whole lot of energy in the first place. And it's not like the primary goal of recycling is energy saving.
- samatman 13y agoRather, it is because electrolytic smelting of bauxite is enormously energy intensive, compared to the melting of sand, glass, or aluminum.
- bcoates 13y agoFor glass and aluminum, energy saving is the whole game for recycling. If energy were free there'd be no recycling of either.
- ars 13y ago> And it's not like the primary goal of recycling is energy saving. Really? And what is the primary goal of recycling glass then? Fair notice: if you say conservation I'm going to laugh at you.
- ComputerGuru 13y agoI would have said reduction of garbage/landfill.
- Dylan16807 13y agoYep.
- aaron695 13y agoThe whole landfill thing has always prayed on human's inability to get to bigger picture. They see a dump and somehow think it'll take over as time goes by. Dig a hole, put rubbish in it, push dirt on top 50 years later and you get a nice park. Don't think it's safe for humans on top, even better a guaranteed wildlife refuge.
- sp332 13y agoMy town dump still had readable newspapers in the lower levels by the time they thought they could put a park on top.
- deelowe 13y agoPeople take issue with putting sand in landfills?
- whyenot 13y agoGlass bottle recycling could be much more efficient if we (in the US) still did what we used to do: wash and sterilize the old bottles and then reuse them. (of course, collection costs might also be higher since you need to get used bottles back to the right bottler without damaging them).
- lambda 13y agoSome dairies do that, by including a $1 deposit on bottles. At $1, it's actually worth your while to collect and return the bottles to the store where you got them (likely when you go shopping for your next bottle of milk).
- thrownaway2424 13y agoIn my town you can arbitrage them by buying quarts of yogurt at the farmers' market where the deposit is $1.25, and returning the bottles to the grocery store, that carries the same brand of yogurt in the same bottles, where they pay $1.50 for returns.
- ars 13y agoReminds me how food stamps can be used to buy soda. Some people who had more than they needed would buy soda, pour it out, and return the bottle just for the deposit. They fixed that by making the deposit not payable by the food stamp.
- vidarh 13y agoNorway has a bottle tax ranging from 0.5 to 2.5 NOK I think (been a while since I lived in Norway; 2.5NOK is roughly 43 cents), and a recycling rate for glass bottles of something like 99%. The key, in addition to the bottle tax, is automated bottle collection machines in pretty much all grocery stores that'll issue receipts to be used to offset against purchases at the till. It's so convenient most people return them, and the bottle tax ensures most of those that gets thrown away gets picked up by kids or poorer people for the money. Most undamaged glass bottles would be returned to bottlers by volume rather than origin, for washing and reuse, apart from Coke bottles for obvious reasons. Though these days most of the bottles are still plastic, but are still largely recycled - even if the energy savings isn't all that huge, it still saves a lot of landfill space.
- britta 13y agoPopular Mechanics did a series on the economics of recycling that goes into some more detail: "Is Recycling Worth It?": http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/4291566 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recyclin... Comparing types of material: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/4291576 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recyclin... Half-truths about recycling: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/4290631 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recyclin... And a followup, "What's the Future of Recycling After the Market's Precipitous Plunge?: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recycling/4298520 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/recyclin...
- mturmon 13y agoThanks for that. I learned that it's very likely that most of the stuff I put in the bin is actually recycled (except, it seems, for some plastics). I had been skeptical.
- Shivetya 13y agoYou can find a whole days worth of entertainment by simply searching on "how X is made". Discovery Channel has a lot of entries on youtube as do other producers of similar content. I am always fascinated by how air is used in sorting various items, from the colored glass in this application to even filtering out bad potato chips.
- dorfsmay 13y agoDidn't they used to wash and reuse bottles? Are all recycled bottles re-created?