Glass packaging is a true „recycling champion“: it can be melted down any number of times to make new glass containers without any loss of quality. This helps to save raw materials. However, the prerequisite is that deposit-free glass bottles and the like are disposed of as completely and correctly as possible in the glass containers in public areas.
With little more than 81 per cent, the current recycling rate (from 2022) for glass falls short of the legal target of 90 per cent. The result of a recent YouGov survey1 states that around 84 per cent of people in Germany usually dispose of deposit-free used glass and other empty glass packaging such as pickle or jam jars in used glass containers. However, this is still not enough to completely close the recycling loop. And some consumers are still sceptical. Myths such as „glass disposed of separately by colour is thrown back together“ persist.
On today's World Recycling Day, those responsible at „Waste separation works“, an initiative of the dual systems, to dispose of used glass correctly. Axel Subklew, spokesman for the initiative, is once again urging people to do so, to utilise further resources in glass recycling. Cough syrup bottles or perfume bottles, for example, end up in the glass container far too rarely: as with participation, the same applies here: „The masses make the difference!‘.
A few principles should be observed for correct disposal: Empty glass packaging must always be sort by colour and allocate accordingly, for example blue glass in the green container. Always dispose of used glass when empty, but only really rinse out honey jars. Lids from glass bottles and packaging may be disposed of in the bottle bank are thrown away. The sorting plant separates them from the broken pieces. If lids or crown caps are disposed of at home, they belong in the yellow bin or the yellow bag. Flat glass such as window panes, mirrors or drinking glasses do not belong in the glass containers due to their different melting points.
Interested parties can experience waste separation and glass recycling on the website of the „Waste separation works“ initiative. Virtual tour of a state-of-the-art glass recycling plant the recycling process, for example how foreign matter is sorted out and how optoelectronic scanners are used to remove off-colours from the crushed glass.
1) Representative online survey for Germany (18+) by YouGov Deutschland GmbH, N=2,044, 16/02/2024
