Which Glass Items can be Recycled?
Glass takes 1 million years to decompose, despite being made of natural elements. Unlike other materials, glass is 100% reusable and recyclable with no loss in purity or quality. We feel that it is environmentally proactive to ensure that Nashville's landfills do not receive glass waste of any kind.
Since glass is made up of natural elements like sand and limestone, recycling or reusing bottles and jars prevents the use of additional natural resources to manufacture more glass. Not only does recycling glass save energy, it reduces the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air through the glass manufacturing process.
When glass is recycled, it is crushed down into little pieces called cullet. Cullet and other materials are melted together to form new glass. It’s estimated that using cullet could save as much as 3% of energy costs for every 10% of cullet used in making new glass products. With such significant impact helping the environment, it’s amazing more people don’t recycle glass on a consistent basis.
That’s where we come in.
Almost any glass can be re-used, especially ones used to contain food or liquids.
- Beer bottles
- Wine bottles
- Jars and other food containers
- Clear glass
- Brown glass
- Green glass
- Blue glass
Once these items are collected, they are sorted by color and processed into cullet.
Recycling Glass in Nashville
What is cullet?
Even though glass is so reusable, the Davidson County and the Public Works Department of Metropolitan Nashville do not offer a door-to-door recycling service for glass due to it being recycled in smaller quantities than plastic and aluminum. While glass recycling is encouraged by the city, it can be a hassle to load up the car and find the closest recycling center.
Instead, RecycleNash offers Nashville glass recycling pick-up services in West Nashville, West End, East Nashville, Belmont, Belle Meade, Brentwood and Franklin for just $72 every six months. Now you can help save the environment from the comfort of your own home.