Glass Recycling

One problem is that there is no easy way for end users to know or keep track of where to take their discards for recycling, nor if any sorting center is readily available.

Around 1975, a neighbor up the street from my parents' house in Yakima, WA, USA set up a gathering scheme in his yard. It consisted of about 8 totes into which anyone could sort their recyclables into clear/green/brown glass, paper/cardboard, aluminum, and maybe a couple kinds of plastic. The totes were mostly concealed behind a low hedge, and I never saw anything unaesthetic about this. Nonetheless, there were jerkwater complaints that resulted in closing down this good idea.

The result was more unsorted garbage into the general stream of garbage. There is a lot more pseudo-environmental sanctimony than genuine solutions for protecting the environment.

There are numerous locations in Omaha for electronics recycling...

It's NOT me dumping!!!

I was just curious........

I'm not accusing you, lol, just sayin, there's no excuse...

Do what with CRT glass now?

I have crushed down and tossed at least 100+ of them in every size imaginable over the years. I think at least 10 more just went out in a load of old sheet rock from a house project I have been working on in the last month or so.

In Cecil County Maryland, we have single stream recycling at the curb. Everything is tossed into the same container and sorted at the destination facility. I've never seen this facility, so I'm real curious as to how they're doing it.

If one takes recyclable material to the County landfill, they have an area set aside for such material. The last time I took some electronics, old televisions, computer parts & the like, there were separate areas for glass, metals, lawn and leaf material and electronics, as well as oil and antifreeze containers. It was well organized. I haven't been there in almost two years, I hope they're still as organized.

In that facility, CRTs were included in electronics and not in normal glass collection.

Where can one get a good recycler to import, either brand new/used/refurbished?

UN and Governments should advise public regarding identifying/handling dangerous substances,sorting and storing waste in separate bins etc. The municipality which collects garbage should be punished if they use dangerous material for landfill. Easiest solution is accepting waste products at the point of sale.

Have a look at the book: High Tech Trash by Elizabeth Grossman. It provides a good overview of the plethora of nasties in a CRT computer monitor. It has a few pounds of lead in it. Since then, of course, CRTs are being replaced by flat screens, I am not sure what the range of nasties are for flat screens. The motherboards in PCs contain a small amount of gold.

Certainly the picture tubes are unacceptable in the glass recycle stream! They will be removed most likely if not damaged and broken which would cause a real problem. However, even the colored glass as in wine bottles, is a problem since it can contaminate the flint glass. Most of those are picked out and if they do not constitute a truck load, get sent to the landfill. There are not as many glass plants doing colored glass so they have to be trucked much farther, which is not economical.

Is it so difficult technology to remove colour from glass?.

The CRTs do not belong with glass. Neither to fluorescents including the compact bulbs. Some states have provisions for such waste. Many do not. Work to improve your local plan for dealing with such waste.

Our local recycling rules also say no "window glass." I have never looked into if there is a chemical/thermal difference or if it is just a safely issue.

Aren't the chemicals or metals in the glass you mentioned natural ,not manmade. I had this idea in hopes that tx,nm,az, and ca. might support building up useful manmade mountains ,using not only, but including, unrecyclabel expensive glass materials like you saw and if they were all Hand sorted and placed categorically maybe in spiraling terraces they would make a beautiful glass appearance as part of a mountain range as well. Thats my opinion about placing them in with glass collections a real mountain has some pretty bad stuff hiding under it.

As long as somebody can take the manmade mountain ranges idea seriously it would be wonderful to have as many monitor glasses as possible for that project.ds