Environmental impact of glass

Why is it good for the environment if you recycle your glass?

Well, in short, you need less energy to make new glass products out of recycled glass - compared to when you make glass with new materials.

That’s because the furnace that makes the glass doesn’t need quite so much energy if there’s lots of recycled glass in the mix.

When you consider that a furnace is likely to be running 24 hours a day, at temperatures over 1500C - then that energy saving can add up.  Particularly as there are 17 glass furnaces across South and West Yorkshire.

Glass industry research suggests that for every extra 10% of recycled glass (known as cullet) in the mix, there’s a 2.5% reduction in energy use.

So this is one of the main reasons the local glass industry is keen for us all to recycle our glass.

And this is one way that we can respond as a region to the Climate Emergency - by supporting a local, circular economy approach to glass production.

So we can all do our bit to keep the Yorkshire glass industry stocked up with recycled glass by recycling our bottles and jars.  You can find your local glass bank on our map - where you’ll also discover how much glass was recycled by people near you last year - and the environmental impact of all that recycling.