Recycle Glass From All Around Your Home

Most of us know we can recycle bottles and jars either at bottle banks or through our council’s kerbside collection. But how many of us are recycling all the items we can? Besides the usual food and drink containers, what about glass bottles and jars from around your home? Think perfume bottles, medicine bottles and beauty products.

As glass lovers know, recycling saves energy and cuts carbon. Using recycled glass in the manufacturing process uses considerably less energy than that required for producing new products from raw materials. Plus for every ton of recycled glass that goes into the furnace, 0.67 tons of CO₂ are saved.

The UK currently recycles around 50% of container glass (such as bottles and jars) and while this figure has doubled over the last five years, we could definitely do better. For example, both Switzerland and Finland recycle more than 90% of their glass. So do take a quick look at the posters below which show some popular glass items that may be slipping through the net. Remember, if it’s a glass bottle or jar, you can recycle it*.

Bathroom

bathroom

Bedroom

bedroom

Lounge

lounge

Kitchen

kitchen

Ever wondered what happens to glass bottles once you’ve recycled them? Check out this brilliant video from Recycle Now: https://youtu.be/IERzI9KxihU

* What about oven-wear, drinking glasses, lightbulbs, window panes, mirrors or ceramics?

Packaging glass has a different chemical composition to the glass used for other domestic and architectural uses – which means it has different properties, such as melting temperature. Mixing other types of glass with packaging glass causes problems in the recycling process. So please only recycle packaging glass