For those of us who recycle some questions come to us very often. Glass bottles They are consumed worldwide and in large quantities, especially in bars. Therefore, recycling them is necessary. The question or doubt that arises is. How are glass bottles recycled? What do you do with them? In turn, whenever we go to the green container, we read the warning that they do not deposit crystals or ceramics. Why does this happen?
All these questions and some more will be answered throughout this post. So, if you want to solve your doubts at once, you just have to keep reading 🙂
Throw glass in green container
Let's start with some of the mistakes that many people make when it comes to recycling glass. And it is that they throw glass glasses thinking that the composition is the same. A glass or glass is not made of the same materials as a bottle. The main difference between these two objects is the lead oxide content of the crystal.
This lead oxide is responsible for the fact that glass cannot be melted in the same furnaces in which glass bottles are melted to be recycled. Therefore, to facilitate recycling and the use of materials, it is most recommended that only glass be deposited in the green container.
Crystal is a glass composition that contains high concentrations of lead oxide. This is done because it achieves a characteristic shine and sound of glass. Therefore, the more sound and shine a glass has, the more lead oxide it will have.
The law is the one that limits that the glass bottles have a high concentration of heavy metals. The limit is 200 parts per million. This is the reason why it seems that the glass has less quality, having a lower brightness and sound. However, thanks to this low concentration of heavy metals, they can be put into a melting furnace for containers to be recycled.
If we do not recycle the glass well and put it in the green container, it will end up in the same ovens as the glass and will become emissions of polluting gases or will be part of other bottles.
Problems in the recycling of glass bottles
Thanks to the small hole in the green container, it guarantees that citizens do not commit atrocities when it comes to recycling. It is important that recycling campaigns begin to educate in the field of caring for the environment and recycling so that people can appreciate what they are doing.
There are few glasses and glasses that are poured into the glass. Moreover, nowadays lead oxide is used, but barium oxide. This is not dangerous in the long term, but it does make the task of recycling glass bottles quite difficult. The arrival in the ovens of other materials much worse than crystal glasses or glasses is what really spoils the process.
There are some materials that contain glass but cannot be recycled in the same green container. For example, the windshield of a car is made of glass, but not only glass. The windshield is made up of several layers just like a sandwich. There are two glass plates and in the middle a sheet of polyvinyl butyral. This compound is a polymer capable of absorbing stress so that the windshield can have greater resistance.
Glazing also has glass coatings to reflect some of the sun's ultraviolet rays and more effectively insulate heat. In addition, thanks to the glass many windows can be colored. The most worrying thing that can be deposited in the green container it's old TV tubes and computer monitors. These items have glass but cannot be recycled in the same ovens as glass bottles as they have high concentrations of lead oxide and phosphorous oxide.
How glass is recycled
This is another question that comes to mind when we put a glass bottle in the green container. What do they do with them? The first thing is to clarify what is done with the materials named in the previous section. They are usually used for filling in works and roads.
Well, once this is cleared up, we proceed to describe the glass bottle recycling process. All the containers that we put in the green container are collected and transported to a treatment plant. On this floor we try to recycle 100% of the material. For this reason, glass is a material that is recycled in large quantities and that should be used more to replace our enemy, plastic.
The treatment process is very efficient, since all the material can be recycled and none of its qualities are lost when recycled. The treatment process is quite automated and mechanical and is carried out through the use of specialized machines. There are some conveyor belts where you try to separate all the material that is not useful for recycling. Among these materials we find some plastic containers, corks, stones, ceramics and even paper. We can be surprised at how many things people can throw away in a green bin.
These conveyor belts have a magnetic separator to collect all the iron elements. The glass is sieved until the maximum possible useful material is brought to the end. Then it goes through some machines called KSP that work by passing a light through the glass. This is how those opaque elements are discovered and a small stream of water is launched that removes them from the conveyor belt.
Advantages of recycling glass bottles
Once the glass has gone through all the selection processes mentioned above, it is crushed until it becomes a calcin. This calcin is nothing more than clean, ground glass. This calcín allows to obtain new glass bottles with the same quality as the previous ones and using less energy during the process.
This is because the recycling process requires a lower melting temperature than the raw materials from which it was made.
I hope that with this information you will know more about glass bottles and their recycling.