Is glass recycling worthwhile?
According to a study by accountants, Grant Thornton, recycling glass may consume more energy than is saved (reported in the FT).
“Recycling materials such as glass can consume more energy than disposing of them in landfill sites, thereby increasing the production of greenhouse gases, according to a report on the waste management business published this week by Grant Thornton, the accountancy firm.”
Brad Ewing said:
Does anyone have cost-benefit statistics for this? How has decomposition rate been taken into account for this report? I feel like this post is tough to accept without hard data.
Alex said:
As I understand it, making glass using 100% virgin raw materials generates 700 kg of CO2 per tonne of glass produced. This is divided into 500 kg in process-related emissions, and 200 kg in combustion energy.
Using 100% cullet (recycled glass) avoids the process-related emissions entirely, while maintaining the combustion energy at 200 kg CO2/tonne of glass. In a carbon context that sounds pretty good to me!
Peter said:
The actual report by Grant Thornton is available here.