Recycled Glass as Aggregate

Tami, I'm not sure about use in road projects, but EPI Concrete in Grand Rapids, Michigan, uses recycled glass in concrete blocks. Maybe they can be of assistance.

Elaine Sterrett Isely

Research Associate
Annis Water Resources Institute
Grand Valley State University
Lake Michigan Center
740 West Shoreline Drive
Muskegon, MI 49441
[email protected]
Dept: (231) 728-3601
Ofc: (616) 331-8788
Fax: (616) 331-3864

Hi Tami,

I would recommended speaking with Chuck Boelkins at Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Chuck's a walking encyclopedia on recyclable materials. Contact me by email and I'll give you Chuck's #.

Norm Ruttan

iWasteNot Systems
Residential Materials Exchanges
www.2good2toss.com
www.materialtrader.org
www.wastenotnewton.com
www.foodtrader.org
www.manuretrader.org
1-800-630-7864

Hi there

There are a few places in NZ using glass aggregate in roading. Have a look at Christchurch City Council website and also Ashburton and another town called Palmerston North. http://www.glassforum.org.nz/future.html#roading Since 2006 the Palmerston North City Council in Partnership with Higgins Aggregates and Fullcircle have been recycling around 2,000 tonnes of glass into a 5% aggregate mix which has been used in cycle track and road construction in addition to building foundations. The Awapuni Recycling Centre built on the closed Awapuni Landfill was built on a foundation that included the 5% aggregate mix. Higgins Aggregates are able to produce a number of different aggregate materials with this process and Transit New Zealand has modified specifications to allow use of up to 5% glass cullet in the base course of roads. Higgins Aggregates is paid $30/tonne to produce the 5% glass aggregate mix. This is significantly less than the local landfill costs of $55 to $100/tonne. The trail blazing efforts of the Palmerston North City Council was recognized in an award from the New Zealand Packaging Council in August 2007

Lindsey Turner
Education Officer for Xtreme Waste
PO Box 153 Raglan/Whaingaroa
(07) 825 6509
[email protected]
www.xtremewaste.org.nz

Tami, You may look into contact local authorities with the Department of Transportation with states such as Washington State, Oregon, California and New York. Take a look at this website 
 

Hello,

We have recently completed some trials on using crushed glass as a replacement for sand. Trial results and report are found at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/warr/crushedrecycledglass.htm It is quite a successful trial. I have visited the site where they separate and crush the glass. Except for the occasional green fleck (i.e. crushed green glass), it looks the same as sand and has the same water retention properties etc.

Cheers
Heidi Robertson

Tami I don't know anything about the use of recycled glass as base course but I do know that both pulverised fuel ash (PFA) from coal fired power stations and recycled construction and demolition waste could be viable alternatives if contamination, supply distance and contractor conditions can be overcome.

Happy recycling!

Janine Barrow
Senior Environmental Planner
Level 7, 263 Adelaide Tce
PERTH WA 6000
Tel: +61 8 9268 9656
Fax: +61 8 9268 9625
Mob: +61 (0)448 975 200
Email: [email protected]
Sinclair Knight Merz
www.skmconsulting.com

David Allaway has some excellent analysis on glass to bottle, fiberglass and aggregate impacts. He works for the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality, (503) 229-5479, [email protected]

You can view the summary on page 27 of US EPA's West Coast Webinar on Climate Change, Waste Prevention, Recovery and Disposal

http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/ECOCOMM.NSF/Programs/wcf/$FILE/101-1-presentatio n.pdf

Bottom line is that recycling back into bottles saves more than 10 times the eneregy than using bottle glass as aggregate. Recycling cullet into fiberglass is even more energy efficient. Refillable bottles are an even better performer. This from a recent Earth Policy Institute byte: A refillable glass bottle used over and over requires about 10 percent as much energy per use as an aluminum can that is recycled. Cleaning, sterilizing, and re-labeling a used bottle requires little energy compared with recycling cans made from aluminum, which has a melting point of 660 degrees Celsius (1,220 degrees Fahrenheit). Banning nonrefillables is a quintuple win option--cutting material use, carbon emissions, air pollution, water pollution, and garbage flow to landfills. There are also substantial transport fuel savings, since the refillable containers are simply back-hauled by delivery trucks to the original bottling plants or breweries for refilling.

Hi,

Down-cycling a resource is not recycling. Glass is expensive and energy-intensive to manufacture and should be recycled into new glass whenever possible. Some recyclers have been engaged in the practice of offering "recycling services" that are in fact "down-cycling." Some recycling consumers, like me, are finding out they are paying for a service they are not receiving, and they are angry. Here, Waste Management and Allied Waste are using glass collected for recycling to cover their landfills and thereby reduce the companies' operating costs. Less recycling; more profit. There are citizen groups in several communities in the Twin Cities that will be lobbying their municipalities to drop contracts with down-cyclers in favor of contracts with true recyclers.

Danie Watson

Ms. Danie Watson
President, The Watson Group Marketing Communications
Member, Turning Point Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative
339 Barry Ave.
S. Wayzata, MN 55391
952-404-1314
952-404-1342
Fax www.watsongroupmarketing.com
www.socialmarketingcollaborative.org

Hello again,

Today I have just seen another project regarding recycling of glass fines. They are crushed and used in sand blasting etc. See the link below for further information.

http://www.insidewaste.com.au/StoryView.asp?StoryID=243112

Kind Regards
Heidi Robertson

Project Officer
Resource Recovery
Sustainability Programs Division
Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW
Tel. (02) 8837 6069
Fax (02) 8837 6099
PO Box 644 Parramatta NSW 2124
Level 2, 1 Fitzwilliam Street
Parramatta NSW 2150

I agree that bottles should be recycled back into bottles, although, we have many other types of glass to contend with. Glass that is not bottles such as window glass needs a recycling source and recycled aggregate is great for this. Our local asphalt and aggregate company takes broken glass and creates a recycled aggregate that also includes porcelain and used concrete as well. Windshield glass is another type of glass that has its issues as well. So keep in mind, it is not just one item were talking about here. Glass entails many things. Of course we make sure any windows and patio doors that are in tack are given away for reuse. Our local recycling center sells their glass to Fire & Light to create beautiful art glass and dishes. Locally we are trying to figure out what to do with windshield glass as it cannot be used in the recycled aggregate. We always try to work locally to find our solutions. Think outside the box especially when there is more to be done than just bottles. It is the plastics we should worry about.

Marianne Bithell
Project Management
Assistant Pacific Builders

Hello,

Yes, I agree that reuse and then recycling of glass into glass products (in that order) is the preferable option. This project and others we carry out seek alternative options for materials that are currently being sent to landfill because there is no other option or use for them. Unfortunately a significant portion of the glass that is separated for recycling cannot actually be recycled as it is too fine to be sorted into separate colours. The reason is that inevitably glass will break as it is transported and sorted. Here, and I assume this occurs around the world, glass is currently sorted from other recyclables and then glass is sorted into the colours (clear, brown and green) by hand. As you can image it is not feasible to sort small pieces of glass by hand. Glass fines (that is glass <30mm) cannot be sorted as they are too small. 'The material tested and trialled was produced from glass fines which are the residual glass left after the main recycling process occurs. The kerbside waste material is collected, sorted and all of the glass material above 30mm in size is recycled; the residual from this process is delivered to Benedict Sand and Gravel for further processing.' 'In NSW approximately 195,000 tonnes of container glass waste is collected for recycling each year. Approximately 100,000 tonnes is sorted by beneficiation plants in NSW and Victoria and utilised in the manufacture of new glass containers. 20,000 tonnes of recycled container glass is also being processed and sold into drainage aggregate, abrasives, paver manufacture, fibreglass and asphalt markets. The remaining material is currently considered unsuitable for remanufacture into glass containers and represents an opportunity to develop new products.' Therefore this project has sought to find an alternative use for the 38.5% of material collected in NSW that was being sent to landfill. (I have quoted from the report 'Trial of Recycled Glass as Pipe Embedment Material - Full report' found at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/warr/crushedrecycledglass.htm)

If you are aware of any projects that are able to sort glass <30mm into the appropriate colours, then we would love to hear about them. I hope that I have cleared that up.

Cheers
Heidi Robertson

eCullet uses high speed optical sorting to separate post-consumer mixed color cullet into furnace ready clear, green and amber streams while removing non-glass (including pyrex) contaminants. They are located in Oakland, California. The President Farook Afsari is at [email protected]

There is a general description of the process at www.ciwmb.ca.gov/agendas/mtgdocs/2006/07/00020618.doc

eCullet uses high speed optical sorting to separate post-consumer mixed color cullet into furnace ready clear, green and amber streams while removing non-glass (including pyrex) contaminants. They are located in Oakland, California. The President Farook Afsari is at [email protected]

There is a general description of the process at www.ciwmb.ca.gov/agendas/mtgdocs/2006/07/00020618.doc