Glass
Every year, millions of glass bottles and jars are collected for recycling through the bottle banks in Nottinghamshire. Just over 10,077 tonnes of glass was collected for recycling in 2004/05.
Crockery, ceramics and pyrex cannot be recycled through the bottle bank system, as they are heat treated and melt at a different temperature to glass bottles and jars.
Did you know?
- The name for crushed or broken glass bottles and jars is 'cullet'
- Each colour of glass is manufactured in a separate furnace.
Why recycle glass?
- Reduces waste - 9 percent of household waste is glass
- Saves energy - less energy is required to melt cullet than convert raw material to glass
- Saves raw materials - one tonne of recycled glass eliminates the need for 1.2 tonnes of raw materials.
Tips on recycling your glass
- To make recycling simpler, please wash out all bottles and jars
- Remove all jar and bottle tops
- Glass bottles and jars must be separated into clear, amber and green for recycling.
- Blue bottles can be recycled with green glass.
Separating your colours
If you take your glass to the bottle banks there are up to three separate banks for different coloured glass (green, brown and white). If glass is collected from your home this can be separated for you but it is much easier to handle if you have already separated them by their colour.
We can recycle:
√ Clean, empty glass bottles and jars.
We can't recycle:
X Pyrex glass or Visionware
X Plate glass - mirror glass
X Light bulbs
X Milk bottles and other returnable bottles
X Opaque glass.
What happens to the glass?
The glass is broken into small pieces and fed into a furnace that burns at 1,500 degrees centigrade, where it turns into molten glass. The molten glass is then blown into new bottles and jars. These are filled and sold again.
Further information
More information on glass recycling can be found on the following sites:
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