How glass get recycled: with laser beams, air suction and magnets!
Who remembers putting out their milk bottles out on the doorstep overnight for the milkman to collect? Yes, milk did once come in bottles believe it or not! Or how about returning your bottle of fizzy lemonade to the cornershop for a 5p refund so that the glass could be recycled? Well, we’re pretty sure neither of those things happen very much at all any more but we are recycling more glass than ever before, about 60% in fact but this could be higher.
But what happens to it after we send it off for recycling? How does the old become the new? It’s quite a simple process but the technology is cutting edge: first the glass is sorted from other waste, then separated by colour, and then crushed into small pieces called cullet and any contaminants are removed using a magnet, air suction and laser sorters! Then it’s all melted in a furnace at over 1500 degrees Celsius and turned into gobs which can be re-blown again and again and again – there is no limit to how many times you can recycle glass!