What are the ways to recycle and reuse glass bottles?

The characteristic of glass material is that it can be 100% recycled and reused, which is suitable for its original purpose and can be transformed and reused after processing. However, if it is not recycled, it will not only increase the load of landfill work but also cannot be decomposed by organisms; if it enters the incinerator for treatment, it may also cause damage to the furnace body. Therefore, the recycling of glass bottles is particularly important.

Due to its strong barrier properties and high transparency, glass bottles are widely used as packaging containers for beer, beverages, condiments and cosmetics. The market for these glass bottles is a special market where new and old bottles coexist, and most of them are old bottles. Recycling glass bottles has created the following social benefits: saving energy, reducing glass waste landfills, reducing the mining of glass raw material mines, and reducing waste gas emissions in the glass melting process. At present, the recycling methods of glass bottles include prototype reuse, remelting, and raw material reuse

1. Prototype reuse

Prototype reuse means that after recycling, glass bottles are still used as packaging containers. It can be divided into two forms: same-item packaging and new-item packaging. Prototype reuse of glass bottle packaging is mainly for commodity packaging with low value and large usage, such as beer bottles, soda bottles, soy sauce bottles, vinegar bottles and some canned bottles. The prototype reuse method saves the cost of quartz raw materials consumed when making new bottles and avoids the generation of a large amount of waste gas, which is worth promoting. Its disadvantage is that it consumes a lot of water and energy. When using this method, the required costs must be included in the cost budget.

2. Remelting

Raw material recycling refers to the method of utilizing various types of glass bottle packaging waste that cannot be reused as raw materials for manufacturing various glass products. The glass products here are not only glass packaging products, but also include product waste such as other building materials and daily glass products. Adding appropriate amounts of cullet helps in the manufacture of glass because cullet melts at lower humidity than other raw materials. Recycling glass bottles therefore requires less heat and reduces furnace wear. Tests have shown that using recycled secondary materials can save 38% of energy, reduce 50% of air pollution, 20% of water pollution and 90% of waste than using raw materials to make glass products. Since the loss in the glass regeneration process is very small, it can be recycled repeatedly. Its economic and ecological benefits are very significant. NEWRAY mainly achieves energy saving and environmental protection in this way. Among our ordinary white materials, recycled glass materials account for 55%, and among high-quality white materials, recycled glass materials account for 45%

3. Raw material reuse

Recycling refers to the use of various recycled packaging glass bottles for the remanufacturing of similar or similar packaging bottles. This is essentially a recycling of semi-finished raw materials for glass bottle manufacturing. The specific operation is to pre-process the recycled glass bottles by preliminary cleaning, washing, and color classification; then, return them to the furnace for melting, which is the same as the original manufacturing procedure and will not be described in detail here; finally, various glass packaging bottles are manufactured using different processes such as blowing and adsorption using the recycled materials.

Recycling furnace regeneration is a recycling method suitable for various glass bottles that are difficult to reuse or cannot be reused (such as broken glass bottles). This method consumes more energy than the prototype reuse method.