FACTS ABOUT GLASS WASTE

Glass manufacture consists of cullet (recycled glass), sand, soda ash and limestone. A typical glass furnace produces about 300 tonnes per day. Up to 90% of recycled glass can be mixed with the other raw materials to create pure new glass once again and this process can be repeated ad infinitum. Currently, about 3.6 million tonnes of glass are used in the UK every year and over 1 million tonnes goes to landfill. Glass does not bio-degrade therefore it stays there forever, never breaking down. The recycling rate for glass in the UK is under 40%, yet many European countries recycle between 50% and 90%.

http://www.rabbittrecycling.co.uk/glass

Glass is an ideal material for recycling. It can be melted down any number of times and processed to obtain new products. Compared with the manufacture of new glass, waste glass recycling helps conserve raw material resources. Using waste glass also reduces energy requirements (by an addition of about 0.2 to 0.3% per percentage point of waste glass). Thus recycling waste glass is good for the environment: it protects the climate by cutting CO2 emissions and reduces the landfill space needed for waste. Glass is usually recycled to produce receptacles (e.g. bottles and other containers for drinks and foods) more than 3 million tonnes a year in Germany. Since the start of waste glass collections in the early 1970s the proportion of waste glass used in glass manufacture has steadily increased until it now stands at up to nearly 90%.
http://www.bmu.de/english/waste_management/doc/3439.php