Glass Recycling

[missmanors]

Glass bottles are piling up sky high in the nation's landfills, with come communities charging beverage retailers to pick up the tab, or charging businesses extra for trashing glass. The question being asked in many areas around the country is, "what can we do to make it cost effective to recycle glass?"

The fact of the matter is that the market price for recycled glass is so low that it's not worth recycling. Less than one third of glass beverage bottle are recycled in the United States, according to information from the E.P.A.
This means that more than 10 million tons of glass is piling into landfills in a year.

Recycling clear glass nets $25 per ton, with brown glass bringing $15 per ton. This means that it costs more to bring it to a buyer than it pays. Green glass pays nothing at all to the recycler.

Now that Americans are having fewer new homes built, the demand for recycled glass is even lower than before, as much of the recycled glass is used to make fiberglass for insulation.

With the current trend in the high price of recycled metal, it doesn't make much sense to waste time recycling glass.

Financial incentives need to be found in our country for recycling glass and cutting back on the huge mounds of glass being dumped in our waste facilities.

North Carolina became the first state to mandate that the state's businesses holding liquour licenses recycle glass. The law came into effect in January.