Recycled glass has three main benefits for the world: the first is to avoid the extraction of new raw materials from the ground, the second is that its melting requires a lower temperature than natural raw materials, allowing energy savings and of millions of tons of CO2 per year, the third and most obvious is the recycling of the artifacts we produce. In fact, glass can be recycled over and over again.
Here we want to focus on the aspect that has the greatest impact on our daily life, CO2 savings. From Feve data (https://feve.org/) each additional ton of recycled glass saves approximately 670kg of CO2 in the atmosphere.
So think that each truck loaded with waste glass saves the emission of 20 tons of CO2.
If we are a glass waste company, how can we help minimize CO2 production? We tried to list four small tips:
- We separate the glass as much as possible
An excessive quantity of extraneous fractions compared to glass implies a more important waste in the processing phases and therefore a lower yield for the entire process. Some pollutants, such as crystal, glass ceramic or grinding paste, even risk making an entire load unrecyclable, with disastrous consequences.
- We transfer the glass only when necessary
Optimizing logistics for glass recyclers is a critical success factor to contain both costs and CO2 emissions due to the transport of this material. It is therefore very important to transfer glass waste only when actually necessary, due to lack of space or business needs.
- Use the correct CER code
It is very important to inquire about the correct EWC code to use for your glass waste. It is not possible to transport several CER codes at the same time, it is therefore important to optimize the loads, and therefore the CO2 emissions, that the same transporter is able to correctly couple the glass waste it transports.
- Choose a company that directly deals with glass recycling for collection
Not all companies that take back glass also have treatment facilities and very often the glass is moved several times before it is actually treated and recycled. In order to reduce these steps, relying on a company that recycles glass by trade helps to have a direct supply chain and therefore reduce the steps from waste to raw material.
In Euroglass ( https://eurovetro.com ) our work is simple to explain, complicated to carry out: we collect and transform all the glass that is thrown away to create raw materials which, once melted by our customers, become new bottles. Our product has the form of a granulate which is checked in series many times by optical selectors, which analyze several million pieces per minute, to guarantee its quality.
About 18% of the glass that becomes waste in Italy passes through our factories to find new life and every day we work to achieve our mission: 90% of the glass thrown away in Europe must be recycled.
