Скачать или смотреть Step 7. Glass Sorting

Glass is removed from the sorting equipment early in the process for several reasons. Glass is damaging, dirty and heavy.
For these reasons, glass is a very difficult material to recycle.

Damaging: Glass acts like sandpaper rubbing between the moving parts of the sorting equipment. It constantly grinds against the gears, wearing them down. Glass must be broken into little pieces so that it can be kept away from the large majority of the sorting equipment.

Dirty: Smaller particles, like paper shreds and little rocks, also get collected with the broken pieces of glass. This makes the collected glass dirty once it is removed from the material stream.

Heavy: Though the glass that is collected from the processing equipment can be cleaned, the final product is incredibly heavy! Its heavy weight makes it a very difficult and inefficient product to transport to glass manufacturers.