Green packaging, the most widely consumed

Tell me what color you are, and I'll tell you what to consume. According to data from the National Association of recycling of glass (Anarevi), the majority of packaging we consume are green (60%). They belong to bottles of wine, cava, liquor and beer - but in the latter case, predominantly the Brown bottle, known in the sector as colour Topaz or amber-. Followed by the white glass bottles, which dominate a quarter of the total. It is used in soft drinks, juices and food in general. In the queue is galss glass (10%), mineral water, the bottles of decoration and the jars; and the opaque - or Topaz-which is used in laboratories and mostly in beer bottles.

According to the color of the glass for packaging, technical limits for the provision of material recovered in the manufacture of glass, can reach the following values: 20% white; Amber 60%; and 80% green.

In Northern Europe, countries such as Switzerland, Germany or Holland, recycled by colors. This means that there are containers for glass, green, white and Topaz, and that containers arrive already separated by colors to the treatment plant. Currently in Spain citizens do not perform a prior each and is preferred to that in treatment plants where, thanks to new technologies, you can select the glass according to their color once crushed. This separation is done with a programmed camera to differentiate the color of each piece of glass range.

According to Anarevi, most glass which is recovered in Spain is of domestic origin, of the igloos installed by the integrated management (GIS) Ecovidrio Association/system in the streets. It is followed by the glass from industrial sources, one whose waste originating in glassworks, scrapyards of cars or demolition of the building and, in general, it's flat glass.

Intruders in the recycling of glass

"If they are surfaces that contain lead, don't have to go to the container of glass," explains Vicente Díaz, responsible for Recuperadora of Barcelona, S.A. (Revibasa) glass, with regard to some cups of glass that should not be in the Green container, but in the clean and green points. "Your company has two plants in Catalunya, one to deal with the flat glass and the other for color glass containers.""If they shine much - continuous with the glasses - it's that they lead lead." Although according to Díaz, lead is being progressively replaced by other materials.

Mirrors, which are now treated with the same process as the flat glass, previously subject to a special treatment. "All the Windows have had to adapt to the quality standards that will require European legislation." Before there was a certain thickness and components integrated glass. In the case of mirrors, used a layer of silver and behind a painting of red lead (lead oxide in powder form which is used as an antioxidant). Components of tank and heavy metals can not go with glass container. "This product has been removed and glasses that occur today can be efficiently recycled for industrial flat glass consumption is," he said.

Porcelain

There are other intruders materials much more easy to detect that 'they slip' in the glass igloos and greatly hinder his recycling, to the extent that, in the Catalan, if a truck plant arrives with a load highly contaminated by them just rejecting because its processing is not profitable. It's the porcelain, ceramics, stone and Earth. "The dishes of the bars and cups are porcelain." Not knowing where to throw him, they miss it to the glass. To us a truck comes and the first thing you do is see the quality of the glass. "If it is contaminated by such materials, is rejected". Vicente Diaz explains why the above: "the glass is a material" very cheap. "At the time in which puts labour or that you have to do special treatment, it becomes more expensive and then not worth trying it." That is why economic recovering plants of glass tend to have a radius of 300 kilometres or, on the other hand, the cost of transport absorbed the benefit of the glass processing.

"The glass is recycled." "The that does not serve to glass packaging can serve to make the white stripe on the road, or to make continuous pavement, special concretes, microspheres, or to make dust of glass or glass fibre", explains Díaz.

The glass reaches the plants and that it is recycled and turned into calcín by its crushing is then bought by foundries, which convert it in packaging in the vast majority of cases. The Windows, flat glass, not comes from recycled glass, as is used raw material, without any pollution, so that its quality is uniform. Not used the glass recycling in perfumery or laboratories, although the glass that is generated in these sectors, it is recycled.

And although all the glass reaches the recovering plants turns, not all glass consumed reaches them. "Currently, the percentage of recycling can be by about 40-50 %". "The rest goes to the landfill site," says Diaz. Citizen awareness or the simple fact of having the container for selective collection metres closer to the dominicilio, determined that the glass can have infinite incarnations.

More than 350,000 tonnes collected

The latest data published by Ecovidrio recovered material say that 353.739 tons of glass containers placed in containers in all Spain were collected during the first half of 2010. The figure exceeds in 4,020 tons - 1.2% - that of the previous year during the same period of time. On the other hand, the last market survey made by the company for Ecovidrio Quor points out that 70% of the Spanish State that recycle glass, and 45.4% of respondents considered recycling as a task in the home. It also highlights mistakes people in recycling: 61% of respondents said deposit vessels of glass along with the rest of glass; 40%, plates, ceramic, earthenware and other pieces of crockery; and 33.6 per cent says throwing bottles of medicines to the igloo. These elements must never settle the glass container, which is only intended for glass packaging: bottles, jars and bottles.