How do we recycle glass?

Have you ever wondered what happens to your glass after you place it in your curbside bin? Take a behind-the-scenes tour of one of SMI's most comprehensive glass recycling facilities in the U.S., located in Delavan, Wisconsin. A variety of glass is accepted, processed, screened and color sorted to make furnace-ready, recycled glass called cullet. Cullet is used to make new glass bottles or fiberglass insulation, supporting a true circular economy.
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[@seanpeters3690]

Glass never decomposes and will effectively be in the landfill forever. I'm glad that there is a glass recycling program here, and I hope more places start recycling glass better. Each bit helps.

[@haverjr]

I mean while it doesn't decompose it does break down with pressure like any other matter to basically be powderized, and unlike microplasics which leech into groundwater pulverized glass is just another substrate water can pass through with no ill effects like sand, fine stone, etc. In that way it is far better for the environment than plastics as it does not hurt our food chain or oceans with floating debris.

[@jonhunt5408]

@@haverjrprecisely, while glass does take up landfill space, it’s essentially refined rock, and like any other aggregate poses no environmental threat.

[@apocalypsepow]

Yes but glass occurs naturally so it's not as bad as plastic it basically just becomes sand again

[@shaunp9592]

Glass does "decompose". It just breaks down into finer and finer particles. If not contaminated by what was in it to begin with glass itself is NOT harmful to the environment. There are no toxic elements or chemicals in glass.

[@picoj44]

Considering glass and other silicates make up a large percentage of rocks and the natural world I’m not sure this is really cause for alarm 😂

[@xy4489]

Glass > Plastic. When people say "recycling is a scam" they really mean "plastic recycling is a scam".

[@whez08]

The most amazing part for me is that these billions and billions of small glass particles get actually sorted one by one. The amount of work the scanner does is mind blowing. (I think in the past it was way easier to sort the unbroken bottles by color and break them down afterwards. But now there are machines who sort the actual broken pieces instead.)

[@darkpadden]

Sure most glass that people think about is clean but.. There is a type a class that is flooding the market atm is leaded glass. Where does this come from? Old school TV sets. And as far as i am aware of there are only 3 places in the US that takes it in and all 3 are overloaded. It's a 500 year problem most forget.

[@whez08]

@@darkpadden Isn't the lead separated in the process of remelting the glass into new product because of their different melting temperature?

[@darkpadden]

@@whez08 it takes more then just Temps but also extra chems to do it efficiently plus one of the side effects of the process is the production of cyanide and other toxic gasses that have to be filtered from my understanding. I once looked into what it would take to build a plant to do it small scale the 200k investment didn't scare me but the epa and general health considerations did.

[@xy4489]

Yeah.. would never have guessed that this is the more efficient design rather than keeping the bottles whole for as long as possible.

[@BillyJoeBob-tv6co]

super toxic if aspirated / ingested / in eyes etc

[@natasha.ixtlan]

Great job guys! 💯

[@TrishaPrajnawirani]

Wow, this is so interesting! It's still very difficult to find these recycling plants in my country. We don't even have a designated area for throwing away glass or batteries. I'm hoping that they will be more widely available in the future.

[@1091Floyd21]

Is that the U.S?

[@TrishaPrajnawirani]

@@1091Floyd21 I'm from Indonesia. I think the US probably has a decent amount of places for recycling and more proper waste handling, though I may be wrong.

[@tonyHern865]

why do we still use plastic bottles if glass is that convinient?

[@robertchristian821]

Awesome!

[@dianetapper2900]

Wow! How interesting!

[@shahspandini4352]

From where do you receive these glass bottles etc ? Is the collection process carried out by your plant or you just buy it from vendors?

[@zoezen6898]

Do any big companies who use glass for packaging offer some form of compensation to customers dropping used containers from them back to them?

[@LORDRA1DEN]

Cool,. Thanks!

[@jamessantiago9724]

Our Landfill wants to partner with our recycling facility in Alaska. Our challenge is shipping it to a plant after it is crushed. I wish there was a market here maybe to use as filler in our roads

[@originalrecipe7988]

People don't understand, we need to take care of this planet. There's a lot of talk about it but no one does anything. We only have 1 home and it's the one being destroyed by us. Colonizing other planets won't be for sometime, so where are we supposed to go when the Earth finally has had enough and forces us to look for home #2. Besides, imagine colonizing Mars and being able to have 2 life-supporting planets, instead of having to say, "Oh we can't go back to Earth because we destroyed it to the point that it can't sustain humans anymore."

[@BillyJoeBob-tv6co]

no sweat, God is going to smelter the entire planet's surface, perhaps to a few miles deep, in the super-near future

[@stevegiannotti2338]

Interesting video.

[@oduonyecallistus3680]

Wow! This is the most interesting video I have seen in this year. I have millions of auto glasses wasting away here due to lack of recycling facilities here in my country. Is there any chance that I can send them to you ?

[@happity]

Not practical, but you can still hammer them into sand

[@zoezen6898]

Love ❤️ it xxx

[@colinpovey7923]

Thanks you.

[@martinkwesiga9904]

Thank you so much…any solution to ampoules and vials (medical glass waste)

[@cyxx414]

this is so interesting

[@1091Floyd21]

I wish they explained how they remove the metal, rather than just saying we remove it. I would've liked if they explained what air classification is

[@amalneeanurasiri8180]

Please answer my question, how do you sort glass into three different colors? Do you use people to sort them or do you sort of them some sensory machines which can identify the colour and sort them ?

[@dougaltolan3017]

It's automatic. The glass is dropped across a line of camera sensors that control air jets. That was the optical sorting stage he mentioned.

[@jeepy8067]

Why don't manufacturers take back their own bottles like milk bottles used to go back to the milkman, and just reuse the same bottle rather than smashing it all up and then having to remanufacture it? I get it's more effort but how much less energy would it use?

[@smi1896]

Refillable programs are great! Sometimes they are designed like a deposit system for consumers to bring them back for sterilizing and refill. Unfortunately, this is not the mainstay today, but we are supportive of this too!

[@nicl6012]

Informative Video! 👍🏼 But what about labels? Are they being washed off or will they be burned during the glass melting step?

[@smi1896]

Labels are removed when we break the glass. They are then screened off or blown off through the process.

[@1091Floyd21]

@@smi1896 I can't visualise that properly. Say if I wanted to get a label off a bottle myself, I'd use really hot water with some sort of wire wool, and give it it a really hard scrub, and then go back over the places where it didn't come off. How could all that be done on pieces of glass that are broken? I can't picture glue would just come off by being air blown!

[@user-gf8es5ct8g]

good❤

[@iqoverlord]

When Inwas a kid. My grandfather bought his beer by the case at the local brewery. He would stick the empty bottles back in the case and return them for a discount on the next one. The brewery just sent the bottles back through the filling line after they went through washing and sanitizer machine. Recycling is not new. Our grandparents and great grandparents did it long before. The problem is society changed now everything is disposable for companies to save money or in most cases to make extra money..😊😊

[@danielgodfrey4415]

Looks exactly like an almond processing plant

[@jukee67]

They probably feed it to us in all kinds of ways.

[@user-ui4om2um2r]

I am about to use glass sand to replace natural sand in concrete for my scholarship experiment，I want to know if I could use small crushing machine to crush waste glass into glass sand？Thanks.

[@scottsendra491]

Is it better to leave a ferrous metal cap screwed onto a glass bottle or remove it when placed in recycling bin? I was concerned with it screwed on that glass would get stuck inside the cap screw threads.

[@smi1896]

Either is OK. Leaving it on, it'll be recovered at the MRF or our facility. Removing it, it could be potentially lost in transit or recovered at our facility♻

[@CarlosAlberto-ii1li]

Almost 50 years ago l had 10 trucks bringing in glass 6 days a week, the price l got at that time in UK was 50 pounds, as soon as all the 'expensive' recycling programs started l need to sell up and put all workers in the street, recycling is expensive, same with paper.

[@user-hb2vs4ou9r]

Hello, I am sending you a message from Iran. America's technology regarding glass recycling is very high. In which state is your factory located?

[@RaffaeleGambardella-sv9wr]

👌

[@Fan-lq6uv]

I've wondered about one thing. Clear, green, and brown/amber glass are common and easily sorted for recycling back into similar colored. But what about other color? I've seen red, blue, orange, and milk (white) glass. Do you offer mixed unsorted color for use where color don't matter, such as making glass bead for paint cans?

[@smi1896]

We accept all colors for recycling without issue! ♻

[@1091Floyd21]

@@smi1896 How? Does blue and red glass go for fiberglass?

[@vysovath9760]

😍😍😍😍

[@hape3862]

If only we could put three recycling containers for white, green and brown glass at every street intersection so that people could sort the still-whole bottles by color for us! - Oh, wait, Germany does that?

[@mklnmlkn6466]

سلام پودر شیشه برای چه کاری استفاده میشه

[@jellyboy123]

would it be better for recycling if all glass was clear and they don’t use green or amber brown glass? plus don’t use labels it be more easy for recycling process .

[@smi1896]

Not necessarily. Colors and labels are the least of the challenges with glass recycling in North America. Contamination in single-stream collection due to needed MRF investments would be a better focus!

[@deanobeany]

Some products need coloured glass, lots of foods, chemicals or medicines need darker glass to protect them from light so they don't degrade.

[@geoffgeoff143]

Here, glass containers are crushed to sand and used in trenches instead of natural sand.

[@davidhouston5783]

Lots of beer bottles with buts and lime pieces in them that don't get returned.

[@mangalapurbhe7972]

But i have no appropriate platform to sale it can you plz tell me about it sir

[@kotlamallesh9993]

Wich is company

[@mangalapurbhe7972]

I am also doing Glass business

[@dellakelly472]

How are you able to sort the class by color? Is there a machine that does this?

[@smi1896]

Yes! We use optical sorters to sort by color.

[@metsimotsatsing4455]

​@Strategic Materials Hello 👋 and which machine is used to weight the cullet?

[@davidochuonyo391]

How much would this system cost

[@scotanderson7689]

Why don't we go back and replace 1 time use plastic with glass containers like we use to. They would not even to sort the glass if they used it in road and other fill projects.

[@TheKirilover]

I’m amazed to hear it’s possible to separate green/brown/white glass automatically on an industrial scale. Meanwhile in Europe we will put this task on customer, to throw glass in containers according to the colors. It would be so much easier to have one container for all and an idnautrial separator, like in this video.

[@1091Floyd21]

Yeah, but it probably ends up costing more that way. Did you ever think about that? The U.S knows it's citizens are too stupid/lazy to be bothered throwing the right coloured glass in the right place, so they rely on the factories to do that.

[@sanjaytravel837]

I want to start scrap glass work I want to sell that scrap, you tell whom to sell this scrap

[@Mohemd-zr4ly]

I have an amount of glass nuts, about two thousand tons

[@ParkJongseong123jaywon]

Imagine falling off on those.

[@ghosted9108]

0:41 anyone else notice the dice😂

[@user-ic8le7xy9m]

السلام عليكم انا من مصر انا اعمل في جمع مواد الخرده والازاز القديم واتمنا ان اصدر خارجآ انا شاب فقير ولاكن عندي المكان والخبره

[@Chris.Davies]

The sad thing about recycling glass is that it is very energy intensive to re-use as glass vessels. Now, in the USA, your energy is mostly non-renewable, so the carbon emitted as a result of the recycling is woefully high. :(

[@Ashleekaa]

Good point. I was wondering why glass bottles were being made when it was already glass bottles, can't we just clean them and reuse them?

[@ELXatrix]

@@Ashleekaa for standart bottles that works already in some places but for lots of bottles with different designs thats not worth the time to sort and ship them back...have a look at how many different bottle designs there are for wine and liquor...you want to send every empty wine bottle back to the winery it came from? or is it more convenient for you to just toss it in a container wich gets to some plant like that?

[@Ashleekaa]

@@ELXatrix A nice design isn't really important so everyone could have the same design. The environment is more important than aesthetics.

[@ELXatrix]

@@Ashleekaa well good luck getting the companys to agree one one design and not stand out in the shelf. and same with the consumer then picking some standart design bottle and not the fancy looking one.

[@Ashleekaa]

@@ELXatrix Ah well that sounds hard, I suppose we'll just have to continue being selfish idiots who get taken out by AI. What a way to become extinct.

[@eamaralmaseyha3328]

I have glass scrap

[@fayethornton774]

How get started to collect and sell glass to yall?

[@fayethornton774]

Live in Alabama nothing like that here

[@scottrayhons2537]

Why break the glass bottle to start with. Why not do what we did in the 1960's and return the bottle to be refilled.

[@ClwnJuNkY]

How much money is there is glass

[@RoadlampManufacturer]

well

[@sniper7.62x51]

What happens to the 50% of the stuff that is not glass?

[@smi1896]

We recycle what we can that is non-glass like ferrous and non-ferrous metals or cardboard. We receive many items that are non-recyclable and are forced to take the scenic route to the landfill. This is why contamination in single-stream recycling is challenging!

[@sanjaytravel837]

@@smi1896 I want to start scrap glass work I want to sell that scrap, you tell whom to sell this scrap

[@h7opolo]

0:45 wrong, they don't sell cullet. cullet is finer grain.

[@smi1896]

Cullet is exactly what we sell! 1/4"

[@geoffgeoff143]

Who pays for this reclaiming?

[@jukee67]

But they say you can't recycle broken glass

[@executivesteps]

The air must be full of glass dust. Doesn’t seem healthy to work around there without the appropriate masks???

[@kristoferraypolman4066]

Ehh I'm not concerned what happens to an empty bottle. My bottle is a gift to one million years down the road

[@evilelf5967]

bet they get through a lot of band aids.lol.

[@DJBSharpMusic]

These people literally specialize in selling people's trash back to them. 🤣 Pretty neat stuff, jokes aside

[@davidb2206]

We need several of these plants in every state ASAP. Coke and Pepsi should be made use only glass bottles that are returnable (and reusable) like in the 1970's. The age of making local taxpayers pay for Coca Cola's plastic trash (at their local landfill) is over. Support a "Bottle Bill" in your state.

[@geoffgeoff143]

Glass will eventually devitrify. Glass is a discription, not a specific product.

[@bellytripper-nh8ox]

**divitrify** is **NOT** a word

[@chandanchandel5418]

I want to sell 1000 tan botle glaas

[@dawolf7784]

It makes me sad the county I’m in stopped allowing us to recycle glass . They make us throw it into the trash . 😢

[@brianbassett4379]

Infinitely recyclable, with a turnaround of potentially 3 days. So why isn't it mandatory to recycle glass? The "waste management" company that collects my garbage doesn't recycle glass; they just transport it to a landfill... why is that allowed? They demand customers cherry-pick and sort recyclables that can be easily profitable but don't recycle glass because it's too expensive for them to process.

[@JaydusMaitland2024]

The homeless giving these people jobs

[@zachoward145]

Bet my company would pay you to take our glass if you're interested in 20 tons. It's tempered

[@smi1896]

We accepted tempered glass at select plants ♻

[@georgeaswipe5031]

I refuse to recycle to protest Just Stop Oil.

[@TryerTryer-tu6je]

Isn't using sand cheaper than recycling glass?

[@techgadgets928]

Wow, this is so interesting! It's still very difficult to find these recycling plants in my country. We don't even have a designated area for throwing away glass or batteries. I'm hoping that they will be more widely available in the future.

[@TrishaPrajnawirani]

Did you just copy my comment? 🤔