Recycling glass is important, as it’s one of the easiest materials to use again. However, broken glass is a well known hazard that we’re all familiar with – and easily causes injures if dealt with irresponsibly. So, can glass bottles and jars go into your recycling bins?
Broken glass should go into your general waste bin, wrapped in cardboard or another material to prevent sharp edges being accessible. Mark it clearly ‘Broken Glass’ for clarity. This is for safety, to protect the waste handlers from accidents.
It’s much more clear cut with other types of glass like window panes that must never go into recycle bins. That’s because different types of glass are made in different ways, so recycling methods differ depending on the type of glass being handled.
Similarly, bottles and jars use similar food grade glass, which is why they both go into the recycling bin together.
Does Glass Get Broken In The Bin Lorries?
When your recycling bins get emptied, you’ll hear the banging and crashing as the lorries heave the bins into the air, emptying the contents into the back. It’s pretty obvious that at least some of the glass bottles and jars will break during this process, so why is the advice not to put broken glass into your recycling bin?
It’s actually nothing to do with the recycling processes – an intact jar and broken jar would be recycled in the same manner – the same goes for bottles too.
The advice against throwing broken glass into your recycling bin comes down to public and staff safety. The bin men handle a lot of bins quickly, and when the contents break – it happens as they fall into the collection wagons, and they’re designed to collect the remains safely away from human contact.
If there was broken glass in your recycle bin when you wheel it out onto the pavement, there’s a chance it could get knocked or blown over, and the contents scattered where people (including children) would be walking. Clearly, broken glass on the pavement is hazardous.
While most of us are responsible and would clear it up, that does carry a risk of injury, but the bigger problem is a lot of people will just leave the mess where it lands, either intentionally or because they’re not aware of it – perhaps they’re at work.
That means you could be left with a mess of broken glass on the pavement or road that could injure someone or puncture the tyres of passing cars or wheelchairs.
Doesn’t Glass Break In The Wheelie Bin As It Fills Up?
Inevitably, if you’re throwing bottles and jars into your recycling bin between collections, some will break from time to time. Councils don’t generally expect you to check the contents before collection day, it’s about reducing risks by not deliberately placing broken glass into your bins.
It’s a good idea to be extra careful when placing items into your bins, and I’m not just talking about glass here. if you’re putting more rubbish on top of bottles and jars, the weight landing on them can cause them to break too.
Typically, we all use bin liners for rubbish going into a general waste bin to the risk is smaller – but getting into the habit of gently placing rubbish into wheelie bins is good practice.
Is Broken Glass Recyclable?
There’s a lot of confusion about whether broken glass is recyclable or not, and a lot of that stems from the advice to avoid putting it into your recycling bin.
Broken glass is recyclable, just like intact bottles and jars. However, it should not go into your domestic recycling bins.
The material itself has not changed just because a bottle or jar has broken. It’s still glass, it’s just been split into smaller pieces. Handling the broken glass is more risky though, and that’s why the recycling method is different.
Most councils now sort general waste bins comprehensively, so there’s a good chance it will still be recycled, even if the broken bottles or jars go into the general bin. That’s why it’s recommended to write ‘broken glass’ onto the cardboard or other material you securely wrap it in.
Can Broken Glass Go Into Bottle Banks?
Bottle banks are the big plastic containers you see in the car parks of major supermarkets, and usually have separate chutes for each colour of glass (typically green/blue, brown and clear).
Just like domestic recycling collections, the operators of these services will not tell you it’s allowed to put broken glass bottles and jars into them.
However, if you think about it, when you use a bottle bank, you can clearly hear them smash as they land, so why would it be a problem to put broken glass into them?
Again, it comes down to safety. Companies don’t want to find themselves liable for injures resulting from handling broken glass, so tend to tell you not to do so.
The chances of you getting into trouble for sending broken glass down the chute into one of these bins is very slim, however, think carefully before doing so.
For example, if the bottle gets stuck in the chute, it’s possible someone might cut themselves on it – and that’s clearly not a good outcome. While broken glass will get recycled from a bottle bank without a problem, you may inadvertently (and perhaps not realise) have created a hazard for other bottle bank users.
Glass Recycling Has Evolved Over Time
There’s more confusion about glass recycling services caused by the way the internet works.
Firstly, old information seems to live forever online. The internet started to get popular in the late 1990s, and there are still pages around today from back then, some of which have not been updated.
Recycling techniques have come a long way in the last quarter of a century – and public desire to recycle has grown a lot too. Those two things combined mean that a lot of time, effort and money is invested in ‘going green’ and recycling more.
Outdated information will tell you glass cannot be recycled, especially broken glass. That’s not true any more, and arguably never was, it’s just much more easy to do so and more widespread these days.
The second issue with the internet is it’s global. When you broadly search for recycling information, you’ll get articles from all over the place. On this site we’re generally talking about UK recycling, which is relatively comprehensive compared to some parts of the world, and has been for at least a decade.
If you happen to stumble across information that’s been online for five years and was written with a part of the USA without widespread recycling services in place at the time, it might be very misleading. At the very least, make sure that information you read is intended for an audience where you’re from.
