In celebration of America Recycles Day 2016, the Glass Recycling Coalition (GRC) launched its website, www.glassrecycles.org. The GRC also kicked off the first in a series of webinars targeting a variety of topics—adding another resource to support making glass recycling work. The GRC brings together a diverse membership of more than 35 companies and organizations across the supply chain—glass container and fiberglass manufacturers, brands that use glass to showcase their products, haulers, processors, material recovery facilities, and capital and end markets—to champion glass recycling.

GRC Website a National Clearinghouse

The tools created and offered on the GRC website will help ensure glass recycling is available and effective across the nation. A 2016 national poll by Survey-USA found that 90% of Americans say they want to recycle glass. The GRC website highlights how, why, and where to recycle glass in communities and provides interactive videos and study links to behind-the-scenes glass processing and manufacturing.

The collaborative website will assist the GRC to grow and foster a national clearinghouse to increase access to recycled glass and improve recycled glass supply and quality. The coalition also offers guidance and resources to communities that want to recycle glass containers, but face challenges or bottlenecks. Industry, public and private sector recycling professionals, as well as the public, will find case studies, best practices, and a budding library of resources dedicated to understanding and successfully implementing community glass recycling.

Webinar Features Glass Recycling Technologies

“Making Glass Recycling Work in MRFs” provided a behind-the-scenes look at single-stream materials recovery facilities (MRFs) equipped with technology to clean and capture quality recycled glass. The GRC-hosted webinar helped more than 150 local and state government representatives gain insight on improving glass recycling collection and processing.

Attendees learned how investments in single-stream MRF technology can pay for themselves with higher returns of recyclable glass. Webinar presenters also offered details about a range of options for end markets and the growing demand for high-quality recycled glass to make new containers.

Key webinar takeaways included:

• Glass cleaning systems in MRFs are capable of cleaning 3-mix glass from 3/8-21/4 in. in size to provide better feedstock for further beneficiation.
• The country is facing a shortage of glass beneficiation capacity.
• MRFs that make a reasonable capital investment can create a sustainable business model that includes glass.
• Significant market capacity exists to accept additional glass volumes.
• Using recycled glass in place of virgin materials reduces carbon emissions and energy consumption in the bottle manufacturing and insulation manufacturing industries. 

Any views or opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not represent those of Ceramic Industry, its staff, Editorial Advisory Board or BNP Media.