September is Recycle Glass Month!

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WHO KNEW?

August 2011

September is Recycle Glass Month 2011, so it’s not too soon to start planning a glass recycling event or activity to celebrate. Last year 55 awareness activities in 20 states created buzz about glass recycling. Recycle Glass Month is the glass packaging industry’s initiative to encourage more glass recycling to help meet its goal of using 50% recycled content in the manufacture of new jars and bottles by the end of 2013.

'Like' Recycle Glass Month on Facebook to see how you can participate in Recycle Glass Month. Consider holding a recycling drive for glass containers, partaking in a planned event, or helping to spread the word about Recycle Glass Month.

Glass containers are 100% recyclable. Recycling “closes the loop,” turning the glass containers you recycle into new bottles and jars. Recycling glass has big environmental pay offs. It saves raw materials, lessens demand for energy, and cuts CO2 emissions.

GLASS RECYCLING: DID YOU KNOW?

• Blue Skies Recycling founder, Harry Cohen, has begun a partnership with the St. Louis Cardinals' Busch Stadium, Edward Jones Dome convention center, and more than 30 local restaurants to collect and recycle glass bottles. All top-shelf liquor and beer bottles are collected for recycling. Since this valuable commodity can be recycled endlessly, Cohen wants to make sure all of the glass ends up being recycled. Blue Skies Recycling takes over 10 tons of mixed glass per month directly to Strategic Materials, a St. Louis company, for processing.

• There's a shortage of recycled glass in the midwest. Ohio manufacturers currently use about 110,000 tons of recycled glass annually from Ohio and surrounding states, yet their need is greater—roughly 275,000-295,000 tons/year. Ohio has five manufacturing facilities for container glass, fiberglass, and reflective coatings, as well as four glass processing facilities to supply the manufacturing plants.

• 10 states collect glass bottles for recycling through a mandatory beverage container deposit program. This means that consumers pay a deposit on glass bottles (and other containers) and collect a redemption when the bottles are returned to a collection center. In these states, the glass container recycling rate is over 63%, according the the Container Recycling Institute.