Waste Glass

Glass is an ideal material for recycling. It can be melted down any number of times and processed to obtain new products. Compared with the manufacture of new glass, waste glass recycling helps conserve raw material resources. Using waste glass also reduces energy requirements (by an addition of about 0.2 to 0.3% per percentage point of waste glass). Thus recycling waste glass is good for the environment: it protects the climate by cutting CO2 emissions and reduces the landfill space needed for waste.

Glass is usually recycled to produce receptacles (e.g. bottles and other containers for drinks and foods) – more than 3 million tonnes a year in Germany. Since the start of waste glass collections in the early 1970s the proportion of waste glass used in glass manufacture has steadily increased until it now stands at up to nearly 90%.