When Driving on Glass is a Good Thing

(Part 1 in a series on The Value of Glass)

It was my own doing that I awoke worrying about having a flat tire on Interstate 75. This would be the consequence of a furtive drive down a lane sparkling with chunks of glass. Furtive because instead of waiting until my appointment to visit the Southeast’s largest glass recycle processing company the next day, I convinced my husband that we should scout our way to the site so we’d know how to find it in the morning.

Our feminine voiced GPS sometimes messes with us by smugly announcing, “Des-ti-nation” at the wrong address, usually about a hundred feet too soon. When she declared we had arrived at the glass recycling plant on Atlanta’s south side, we found ourselves staring at an overpass next to railroad tracks. We thought she’d fooled us again, but a glance to the side confirmed we were at the right place. A bedazzling heap of colored glass the size of a circus tent lay just beyond the tracks.

We headed over the track to investigate, committing our vehicle onto a one-way glass splattered lane.

I needn’t have sweated. During our legitimate visit the next day, Hazel Mobley, glass consultant for Strategic Materials Inc. (SMI) the largest glass processor in North America, scooped with her bare hand a fistful of glass pieces like those we had driven over and sifted it through her fingers.

“Honey, this glass won’t hurt you,” she said, and I believed her. After more than 32 years in the business, Hazel knows glass. “This is cullet. It’s processed recycled glass. Manufacturers make this into new bottles. Pretty, isn’t it?”

Indeed it was an enchanting sparkling mound, as were other piles of blue, green and brown cullet on the lot. Piles of glass destined for rebirth as new containers.

Glass is one commodity that can be recycled again and again, saving as much as 75% energy when cullet is used. The glass process is a closed-loop sustainable business. There is no limit to the number of times glass containers can be reprocessed into new glass containers.

Did you know that December 10 is Glass Recycling Day? I didn’t think so. That’s why for the next few days I’m going to be filling you in about glass. You can thank me when Glass Recycling Day gets here next Wednesday, and you won’t be lost out back when the parade starts. University students are in a contest for the best glass recycling promotion. Winners will appear on You Tube on the big day.

Stats from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

• Glass from food and beverage containers is infinitely recyclable. The quality does not diminish.
• 90 percent of recycled glass is used to make new containers
• Other uses for recycled glass are kitchen tiles, counter tops, and fiberglass wall insulation and pavement
• Americans generated 13.6 million tons of glass in the waste stream in 2007
• About 24 percent of the glass going through the waste stream was captured for recycling

On a national scale about one fourth of glass in the waste stream gets recycled and most of it from drink bottles. Next I'll tell you about what happened to glass - - when plastic soda bottles blew up.