Glass Recycling – Commercial Glass Waste Collection

We provide glass recycling for over 25,000 businesses across the UK. We compare the market and get the best quote for your commercial glass waste collection. Get started by filling in our 1 minute quote form.

What is commercial glass waste recycling?

Commercial glass recycling is the process of taking your businesses’ glass waste, crushing and melting it, and finally remoulding it back into useful glass products.

If you’re a restaurant, for example, your empty beer, wine, and soft drink bottles will be collected by your waste collector and taken to a treatment facility (making sure your glass bottles don’t get mixed with your other waste types on the way).

The treatment facility will then crush the bottles into small fragments called cullets. Then they’ll wash them and remove any drink residue or sticky labels.

Following that they’ll melt down the cullets and place the molten glass into moulds to create new drinks bottles. This recycling process is so efficient that, if done correctly, effectively 100% of your glass waste can be recycled into new products.

We’ve been collecting glass waste for businesses for over 11 years so we can provide a fantastic deal for our customers because we know the glass collection process inside and out.

Get a quote and see how much you can save with us today.

Can I get glass recycling near me?

WasteManaged provides glass recycling services all across the UK.

As a business owner who may be located in a more remote UK location, you might ask ‘can I get glass recycling near me?’.

Well, we operate everywhere in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and can service most postcodes in Scotland, so we’ve probably got you covered.

Major locations where we have 100% cover include:

• London
• York
• Hull
• Birmingham
• Manchester
• Sheffield
• Bradford
• Bristol
• Newcastle
• Leeds
• Thirsk
• Cardiff
• Swansea
• Rotherham
• Glasgow
• Aberdeen
• Wakefield
• Belfast

Wherever you’re located there’s a very good chance we can collect and provide glass recycling near you.

How is glass recycled? – Glass recycling process

Glass is recycled in a 3 step process. First, it’s collected from your business sight and delivered to a treatment facility (transportation stage), then it’s sorted, crushed, and cleaned (cullet stage), and finally, it’s melted down and remoulded into new products (reproduction stage).

Is glass more eco friendly than plastic?

On the surface, glass is one of the best eco-friendly container products in the world when it comes to recycling – far better than plastic in that regard. However, due to glass being heavier, the overall impact on the environment when you take into account things like transportation costs is actually slightly worse for the planet.

Glass can be recycled with 100% efficiency due to its simplistic chemical structure which is great news. But because it’s heavy, inflexible, and prone to damage it can be a burden on the environment in real terms.

Whereas, plastic, in general, is a lot more difficult to recycle efficiently. This is because many plastic products are made up of various polymers and components.

This means that melting points are rarely the same from one plastic product to another so the recycling process becomes difficult.

However, due to plastic being far more flexible, durable, and lighter its overall harm to the planet is shockingly less than that of glass! You can read more about this here.

What types of businesses require glass collections?

Typically businesses in the hospitality sector will require glass collections. This includes pubs, bars, restaurants, and hotels.

However, other businesses may require a specialist glass service. This would be for things such as broken glass windows, light bulbs, and lab equipment.

Manufacturers who work with glass materials, schools, hospitals, beauty salons, car garages, glaziers, and opticians will likely need a specialist glass service.

Alternatively, you can fill in our quick and easy quote form.

Can you put normal glass in recycling?

Many glass items you regularly throw away can be recycled such as jars and bottles (without their lids and caps). But other glass products such as lightbulbs, drinking glasses, and Pyrex can’t be recycled in the normal way since they are designed to withstand high temperatures.

Ceramic items are also often mistakenly thrown into commercial glass bins. These can’t be recycled under the same process as glass bottles and jars either.

Types of glass you can typically recycle

• Bottles
• Jars

These will need to be without lids/caps and can be any colour whether that’s clear, brown, green, amber, or blue.

This didn’t always use to be the case and glass waste had to be separated by colour. But with modern recycling technology, this is no longer a problem.

Types of glass you can’t recycle without specialist processes

• Glass mixed with other non-glass materials
• Decorated glass products
• Dirty glass or glass caked with food waste
• Mirrors
• Ceramics/dishware
• Pyrex and oven glass
• Window glass
• Light bulbs

Most businesses, especially those in hospitality won’t need a specialist recycling service for these materials and standard collection service for their empty bottles and jars is far more common.

Glass waste bins

Typically a 240L 2-wheeler wheelie bin is used for your commercial glass disposal. You don’t need to use bin bags, just straight into the container.

Glass recycling facts and statistics

• Glass can be endlessly recycled without losing its quality or integrity
• In the UK, glass has a 76.5% recycle rate – meaning that three-quarters of all glass is recycled
• Around 1 tonne of natural resources are saved for every tonne of glass that is recycled
• Over the last 30 years, glass bottles have had their weight reduced by 40%
• Every tonne of glass recycled saves 246 kilograms of CO2 emissions
• It would take about 1 million years to fully decompose glass in landfill
• 200,000 tonnes of recyclable glass is unfortunately sent to landfill each year
• For every 100,000 tonnes of glass recycled, 500 jobs are created

You can get your commercial glass recycled with us today by filling in our quick and easy quote form.