Glass Recycling FAQs
Glass is infinitely recyclable – you can recycle it endlessly without its quality degrading. This makes it a highly sustainable material that contributes to the circular economy. Every business and household should recycle all used glass items they produce – from empty wine and beer bottles to glassware and old makeup jars.
We provide commercial glass waste collection services to help businesses across the UK get rid of any type and volume of used glass responsibly. If you’ve got a question about how to dispose of or recycle glass properly then we can also help. Find out what to do with old glass and how it’s recycled with these FAQs.
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Contents
What are the types of glass waste?
There are different types of glass for different uses. The most obvious industry producing glass and related waste is glaziers. Frosted, patterned or straight glass may be used for windows, with offcuts and broken glass during the process commonly going to waste. Such glass may be toughened or tempered to produce a different strength or thickness.
Various types of glass are produced to meet different requirements. As such, they can have different chemical compositions. Some of the different types of glass waste can include:
- Commercial glass
- Borosilicate glass
- Glass fibre
- Lead glass
- Alkali-barium silicate glass
- Aluminosilicate glass
- Glass-ceramics
- Optical glass
- Sealing glass
- Vitreous silica
Can glass be recycled?
Glass can be completely recycled endlessly with no waste parts left or a loss of quality. Brown, green, and clear glass can easily be separated for collection. It’s then taken to a recycling facility where it’s treated and then the glass elements are fully melted down and reused to make new products.
How do we recycle glass?
Recycling glass reuses all the waste materials to create new products. Some glass is recycled to make new bottles and jars, whereas other types are used for purposes such as road surfacing, grit blasting, and filtering water. It’s always thoroughly cleaned at high temperatures to remove impurities and potential contaminants first.
The glass recycling process begins in your business or home by using specific bins or containers to store bottles and jars. Clean, rinse, and dry the glass and put it in the correct bin. It’s then removed and transported to a glass recycling facility. Here it’s processed and turned into new glass products. This is the general process for recycling glass:
- First, the waste glass is treated. This is often using air or magnets to remove any paper, metal, and other contaminants.
- It’s then sorted by colour and washed to remove any remaining contaminants.
- Once clean, the glass is crushed and broken to produce a substance called cullet.
- After the glass has been made into cullet, it’s then heated to around 1000°C, fusing it back together and moulding into new products.
- Sometimes the cullet is sent to other countries for processing – or it may be used to produce ‘glasphalt’ and other materials.
How to dispose of glass
Disposal of glass depends on the type of glass, whether it’s intact or broken, and where the waste is created. It usually follows the same process, you just might need to separate your waste glass into individual bins if you have different types like glass bottles, windowpanes, and broken glass.
Businesses can separate and dispose of glass in specific bins, so it’s sent for recycling. Households should recycle glass bottles in jars at bottle banks or in their domestic recycling bins (if accepted). For windows, shards, and big pieces of broken glass you could take them to your local household waste recycling centre (HWRC).
We can help with your commercial glass waste management by surveying your needs. Whatever type of glass waste you have, we’ll provide recycling bins to store it securely and arrange collection on a schedule that suits your operations. All you need to do is clean your waste glass and place it in the relevant container or glass bin.
Our trained experts will take care of the rest. After collection, they’ll transport it to a nearby glass recycling plant to be sorted, graded, and disinfected before it’s heated and moulded into new products. This ensures you can focus more time and effort on your business with peace of mind that your glass waste is removed and recycled correctly.
How many times can glass be recycled?
Glass is infinitely recyclable, meaning you can reprocess and reuse it time after time without losing any of its initial quality. Use it, wash it, melt it down, create new glass, and use it again endlessly – the cycle continues. This also uses less energy compared to creating new glass from scratch, so it’s essential you recycle glass whenever possible.
How do you recycle glass bottles?
You can recycle any type of glass bottle, whether it contained wine, beer, soft drinks, olive oil, or any other liquid. To recycle glass bottles:
- Empty the glass bottle and rinse it out to remove any leftover liquid.
- Remove the cork and recycle it separately or compost but put any lids and caps back on.
- To recycle bottles from home visit your nearest bottle bank and place them in the relevant colour bottle bins (or place them in your household recycling bin if glass is accepted).
- For businesses, put the empty glass bottles in the bottle bins on-site. Then arrange commercial collection by licensed waste carriers.
- The bottle bins will be removed and taken to a recycling facility where the bottles are cleaned, graded, sorted, and recycled to create new glass products.
Does recycling glass save energy?
Making glass bottles, jars, and other products always takes energy. The process requires much less energy when you recycle existing bottles and jars rather than making them from scratch. Millions of tons of glass are recycled every year, which are melted and made into new glass products.
Melting existing glass can be done at a far lower temperature than you need to melt the raw materials to make new glass – which saves more energy. It’s possible to buy the raw materials required to make new glass. However, it’s a more complex process compared with melting and reusing existing glass items. That’s why recycling glass makes sense.
Can you put broken glass in recycling?
Broken glass recycling is possible whether it’s smashed bottles from a pub or cracked windowpanes from a garage. As glass is crushed during the recycling process it’s easily recyclable whatever condition it’s in. You can usually dispose of and recycle broken glass with intact items in the same glass waste bin.
This includes a household recycling bin where glass can be recycled domestically, a bottle bank for recycling broken glass bottles and jars, and commercial glass waste bins in businesses. Broken glass recycling should be done with care to reduce the risk of an accident or injury though.
If recycling broken glass at home in a mixed recycling bin you might want to put it in a cardboard box to protect the waste collectors. When recycling broken glass in a bottle bank or glass waste bin at work you can normally put it straight in.
Is glass recycling good for the planet?
Recycling glass is great for the environment. It’s one of the easiest materials to recycle and can be endlessly recycled while maintaining the same level of quality. Recycling requires less energy and raw materials, and it saves landfill space. This reduces carbon emissions associated with glass waste.
Estimates show it could take a million years for a glass bottle to break down in landfill. Glass bottles and jars sent to landfill take up unnecessary space, lead to wasted energy, and mean these products aren’t recycled. Recycling any glass products is much better for the planet.
How is glass made?
Glass is made by heating sand to an extremely high temperature with ash and limestone and then shaping it. Because of the immense heat required to produce glass from sand, recycling reduces the carbon output. Glass can be melted down and recycled multiple times.
How do I dispose of
glass windowpanes?
The glass in your windowpanes is different from that in bottles and jars, as it’s treated and strengthened using heat and various chemicals. You can still recycle glass windowpanes. It’s often recycled to make new windows or a powder to be used in concrete and cement.
Keep glass windowpanes separate from glass bottles for recycling in your business. Take any old windowpanes to your local HWRC for recycling rather than putting them in your household recycling bin too. This keeps them separate from other grades of glass materials.
Windowpanes will go to a glass recycling plant where it either follows a similar glass recycling process to bottles (melted and remoulded into new windowpanes) or is crushed and added to bulk up cement. This must be done separately from other glass types as when windowpanes are melted they release chemicals, which cause an issue for glass bottles and jars used to store food and drink.
What do you do with old bottles?
Businesses must arrange commercial bottle collection by licensed waste carriers to get rid of old bottles from their premises legally. The old bottles should be stored in separate bins on-site depending on their materials. After the bottle collection, they’re taken to a waste management facility for recycling.
You should take any glass bottles from your home to a nearby bottle bank to recycle. Other options for old bottles include reusing plastic bottles as drinks containers, using them as measuring cups or storing paint brushes and art supplies.
Is glass hazardous waste?
Glass is not hazardous waste. Glass doesn’t contain any hazardous elements or pose potential harm to human health or the environment. It should still be separated from other rubbish and sent for recycling. Any glass jars or bottles used to store chemicals could be a type of hazardous waste if any hazardous elements remain.
Get a fast and free quote
Get a fast FREE quote for glass collection
- Free quote within 1 hr
- Any type of glass waste
- FREE bins and delivery
- We cover all of the UK
Published 6th February 2025 by Graham Matthews.