Recycle Glass Bottles and Jars

    Americans annually throw away almost as many glass bottles and jars as they do aluminum
    cans – roughly thirty billion a year.  According to the Environmental Defense Fund, that’s enough
    glass to fill the 1350-foot (412-m) twin towers of New York City’s World Trade Center every two
    weeks.  Bottles and jars take up space in landfills needlessly, for almost all are recyclable.  
    Manufacturing new ones to replace those that are discarded involves mining white sand,
    limestone, and soda ash, transporting these materials to the plant, dissolving them by
    superheating, and then cooling the mixture.  These processes require energy, produce mining
    waste, and contribute to air and water pollution.

    All glass bottles and jars are recyclable.  Clear glass is used for some juice and beverage
    containers, peanut butter and jelly jars, and a variety of other food containers.  Apple juice, prune
    juice, and beer often come in brown bottles, while green bottles are used for wine, beer, and a
    few soft drinks.

    To reduce their volume, recycled glass jars and bottles are broken up before being shipped to the
    manufacturing plant.  This recycled crushed glass is called cullet, and glass containers made in
    the United States typically contain a percentage of cullet.  Manufacturers like it because it saves
    them money.  Cullet lowers the temperature required to melt the sand-lime-soda mixture, so that
    less energy is consumed in the manufacturing process.  And for every ton of cullet used to make
    new containers, approximately 1.3 tons of raw materials can remain in the earth.

    Some kinds of glass are not recyclable: plate glass, mirrors, Pyrex, crystal, and light bulbs.  These
    cannot be combined with cullet from glass jars and bottles.

    Recycling glass is almost as easy as recycling aluminum cans.  Remove the caps and plastic
    rings, but don’t bother with paper labels.  Until you’re ready to recycle, store the glass in a
    separate container from landfill-bound trash.  (if space is a problem, you can combine all your
    recyclables in one large container and separate them when you get to the recycling center.)  In
    states that have “bottle bill,” you can return glass soft drink bottles to the store where you
    purchased them for a refund.
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