Companies are increasingly focusing on the sustainability of their operations and products to contribute to the protection of the environment and at the same time attract consumers, for which the green issue has become a crucial element in the election phase.
And this is the path taken by a well-known company, specializing in the repair and replacement of car glass. It is the first company in the sector in Italy to have organized one structured collection nationwide of damaged windshields.
From waste to resources
The replaced windshields are periodically collected from the company's centers throughout Italy and transformed into new raw material, which the glass industry can reuse.
The project therefore traces a virtuous and circular journey, still little known to public opinion, through which waste is once again a precious resource for the community.
The numbers of sustainability
This operation allowed the equivalent of 2.500.000 bottles, made from the glass of windscreen in 2021 in Italy alone. It is 2.125 tons of windshields, which have made it possible to obtain 1.800 tons of 100% recycled glass, with a saving of 1.044 tons of CO2.
A new journey for windshields
Let's see in more detail how this dynamic is articulated. The damaged windshield, which cannot be repaired, enters the recycling circle: over 80% of the windshield, the one made up of glass, is recycled; while the remainder, consisting of PVB (the safety material placed between the two layers of glass to prevent this from breaking into small pieces in case of breakage) is recovered for 85%.
The treatment of glass
Once collected, the glass is processed to be brought to the state of granulate or sand from the controlled parameters in terms of fire loss, grain size and humidity. This product is thus ready to be melted in the glass industries to create new glass-based products.
Towards an impeccable circularity
The project and the results obtained contribute to highlight once again the importance of traceability of products and waste, in addition of course to the value of the construction and monitoring of processes and methodologies.
The state of the art at the moment involves the transformation of windshield glass into bottles, jars and other food packaging, but the real goal, as well as the next step, is for the windshield to go back to being a windshield, according to a circularity that is nothing short of perfect.
Source: gripdetective.it
