Glass Recycling
Why is Recycling Glass Important?
Glass can be melted down to make new glass products over and over again– it is 100% and endlessly recyclable. In fact, it’s the perfect circular economy material.
New glass is made from four main ingredients: sand, soda ash, limestone and other additives for colour or special treatments. All these raw materials have to be quarried, using up natural resources and utilising energy for extraction and processing.
Therefore by simply recycling our glass we can reduce non-renewable fossil fuel usage and reduce the emissions of process CO2 from the carbonate raw materials such as limestone.
Biffa, the University’s waste partner, processes around 160,000 tonnes of glass each year. Warwick disposed of around 136 tonnes of glass of which 100% was recycled since December 2023.
Recycling is good...but we can do better!
- When selecting drinks go for cans instead of glass bottles. Recycling a glass bottle uses 90% more energy than recycling an aluminium can. Aluminium cans are one of the easiest materials to recycle, and aluminium can be recycled indefinitely.
-
Instead of just sending your empty bottles, glasses and jars off to be recycled, try repurposing them in the comfort of your own home. You can find creative ideas here, here, and here.
What can be Recycled in the Glass Recycling Bins?
Remember to NOT include black bags and make sure all bottles and jars are clean and empty. If the recycling waste is contaminated by food and drink it CANNOT be recycled!
Yes, please
✔ Wine and Beer bottles
✔ Glasses
✔ Broken Glass
✔ Glass jars
No, thank you
✘ Crockery
✘ Cutlery
✘ Food
✘ Paper and cardboard
✘ Empty food containers