Glass is endlessly recyclable like no other product. Our main objective is to use as much glass cullet as possible in our production processes. The use of cullet avoids CO2 emissions, since cullet requires less energy to melt, and replaces carbonated raw materials.
AGC Glass Europe recycles around 1,000,000 tonnes of cullet per year, saving about 1,150,000 tonnes of raw material and 275,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
We are actively involved in several projects to improve collection and reuse of cullet in our plants. These include:
- redefining the flows of cullet in order to reduce transport distances between the source, the recycler and the float plant;
- increasing the range of materials that we are able to load into our furnaces
- teaching our people to sort the cullet efficiently so as to recycle it better;
- etc…
However, the cullet used in our own production process has to meet stringent specifications, and so we also actively seek out alternative routes for cullet that we cannot recycle in our own products.
In the Netherlands for instance we helped to develop a national system of collecting flat glass from construction and demolition waste. This cullet is now reused instead of being sent to landfill. A great part of it is reused in other glass production (for bottles, fibreglass, foam glass etc), but there are many other potential applications such as reflective road surfacing, golf bunker sand, aquarium ornamentation, water filtration systems, construction aggregate and so on.