Tips for Recycling Green Glass

After you take the last sip of Pellegrino or Heineken, what happens to that green bottle? Do you toss it in the trash or do you recycle it? The environmental impact of recycling those bottles is much greater than tossing it in the trash.

According to the Glass Packaging Institute, recycling bottles:

1. Reduces energy costs by 2-3 percent for every 10 percent of furnace-ready scrap glass, also known as cullet, used during the manufacturing process
2. Conserves raw materials. 1 ton of recycled glass saves 1,300 pounds of sand, 410 pounds of soda ash and 380 pounds of limestone
3. Lowers landfill usage. Even with glass being 40 percent lighter than it was 20 years ago, it still places a burden on already overwhelmed sites

Recycling glass bottles is as easy as dropping them into your curbside recycling bin or taking them back to the grocery store, where you may receive a bottle deposit back for returning them. When recycling glass bottles follow these guidelines:

• Remove any lids, caps or metal from glass bottles so furnaces are not damaged during the recycling process
• Rinse containers with water
• Labels don’t need to be removed since they’ll be burned off during the recycling process
• Separate colors of glass – Once a glass container has been colored it cannot be made into a different color