Around 90%, if not more, of all glass collected for recycling, in our region at least, is not recycled at all but downcycled in that it is not being turned into new glass but is ground down for road aggregate.
When glass bottles, and glass jars, are not separated by color and all end up broken, while being tipped into the collection vehicles, into the same container no one can tell me that that stuff is made to make new glass. It does not work.
A huge waste of a valuable resource.
We once had it right, years ago, when all glass bottles came with a deposit and went back to be cleaned, sterilized and then refilled, until such a time that they were actually broken. As far as milk bottles are concerned that was not until that long ago. The milkman brought the full ones and collected the empties.
During the Second World War in Britain even glass jars were collected to be reused by the factories and this could still be done today as there is just a number of size openings of such jars and thus required lids. But no, it seems to be too labor intensive not considering the cost to the environment.
Even when that was no longer the case, as in the case of glass jars, not all that many were ever tossed out because they were being reused in the home for all manner of things (and I still do this today).
They, depending on the size, where used to store dry goods, from beans, peas, lentils, to pasta, oats, and even flour, in case of the large ones. Smaller ones were employed for storage of the likes of nails and screws, buttons, and whatever else. Some were also used as drinking vessels and this was the case when I was a child and is still the case in my home to this very day.
Broken, the shards of bottles and jar became a woodworking tool, namely that of a scraper for so-called glass shave. It works by far better than a steel card scraper. The only disadvantage to a steel card scraper is that the glass shard cannot be resharpened but then again that matters little as there is always ample material available.
When it came to glass bottles in the days when there was a deposit on them even if they were tossed out by people into the ditches and whatever they did not stay there long. Kids would soon pick them up and take them back to the shops to get the deposit for pocket money. Almost every child did so when I was a kid.
But, apparently, reintroducing a deposit scheme for glass bottles would be too difficult, according to government because one would not know whether it would ever work in this country. That is entirely disregarding the fact that we once had it and it worked well. You just could not make it up. There is no political will to do it and that is all.
Therefore glass recycling is and will remain a scam.
2025 © Michael Smith
