How the Great British Spring Clean and Global Recycling Day can help glass

New beginnings and spring go hand in hand.

As fresh flowers start to bloom, lambing season begins and the days start to get longer, people often take the opportunity to make a fresh start and form new habits.

Capitalising on this renewed energy to make a change, two events take place this month that hope to promote the many benefits of recycling.

The Great British Spring Clean

The Great British Spring Clean begins today (March 22) for a whole month and will encourage people around the UK to collect and recycle litter from streets, parks and beaches in a bid to improve the environment on our doorstep.

Run by Keep Britain Tidy, the aim is to inspire 500,000 people to join together and make a difference to their local communities by picking up litter.

To get involved you can organise or join a litter pick in your local area, or even just pledge your support to the campaign by spending as little as 15 minutes picking up litter.

The Great British School Clean also runs alongside the event to encourage schoolchildren to get involved, with £1,000 worth of equipment up for grabs just for registering a clean-up.

However, the Great British Spring Clean wasn’t the only event to take place this month that promoted recycling.

Global Recycling Day

Global Recycling Day took place on Monday (March 18) to recognise and celebrate the importance of recycling in securing the future of the planet.

A number of different events took place across the world, from Nigeria to South Korea via the UK and India, to raise awareness of the importance of recycling in helping the environment.

The day targeted leaders around the world to bring them together in a common approach to recycling whilst also changing the public’s perception on goods around us from waste to resource.

However, both events were part of a bigger initiative to try and change our behaviour in prioritising recycling over waste.

But that is exactly how glass should be seen in the first place.

How glass fits in

When it comes to packaging materials, glass should never be seen as waste because it has endless lives.

That means it never loses its quality or clarity no matter how many times its recycled

So glass can become a truly circular economy if its continuously recycled.

As well as this, the amount of virgin raw materials used in the manufacturing of a new glass bottle can be reduced by adding cullet (recycled glass) into the mix.

This in turn, reduces the amount of Co2 emissions released into the earth’s atmosphere.

However, glass packaging needs to be recycled and not sent to landfill in order to achieve a circular economy.

So with events such as Global Recycling Day and the Great British Spring Clean raising awareness, we could see even more glass recycled, and this can only be a good thing not just for glass, but for the environment as a whole.

Are you looking to lead a more sustainable lifestyle? Learn how glass can help you do just that.