Comment on If we replace most plastic with a non plastic alternative and would that really be better?
lemming741@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoA 12 oz glass bottle takes roughly 1100 BTUs to melt the glass for. That is conveniently, roughly, 1.1 cubic ft of natural gas.
60,000 BTU/hr is a very common size for natural gas HVAC furnaces. That’s basically a bottle a minute, just to give people an idea.
There are other inputs of course, but furnace net efficiency is around 2200 BTU/lb
Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
In the case of glass bottles don’t forget that they can be reused instead of recycled. Which reduces the amount of energy you use for them.
lemming741@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah it’s like 30% less heat input to melt cullet and you save raw materials. The problem is the quality impact. It’s a similar problem with paper recycling. Part of that is the fault of consumer preference, and I think that’s changing.
www.aigmf.com/…/Cullet Sorting Technologies.pdf
Some info on the challenges
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That is an awesome bit of info. I had never even thought about stuff like mirrors interfering in recycling glass
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yeah, I meant to put that in my comment and lost track. My brain was so fried, I’m surprised any of it was intelligible.