What *REALLY* happens to 'Recycled' Glass?! - (you might be surprised)

so today we're going to find out what really happens to recycled glass i think it's a bit different than what you might think plus at the end of the video we're gonna talk about team c's we can't let linus tech tips out donate jerry let's get started [Applause] [Music] so glass is a pretty cool material it is inert which means it doesn't react with whatever is inside of it but that also means that it doesn't decompose in landfills it can take up to a million years for one of these things to break down but the good news is they are also infinitely recyclable which is what we're going to learn about today how glass is recycled and what we can use it for right now i'm at momentum recycling up here in salt lake city where they handle glass in all of its forms so we can turn it into something new here in the united states there's a lot of different ways to recycle glass some places have curbside pickup other places have a big dumpster where you need to take the glass and drop it off in order for it to be collected in one convenient spot using the glass collet that comes out of this recycling center uses forty percent less energy when creating new bottles what is cullet you ask let me show you we're going to start off with all of the glass dumped in one spot this is the brown glass the blue glass the clear glass even plate glass it's nice we don't have to pre-sort it the sorting comes later the materials taken by a giant front loader and dumped into a blue hopper which funnels all the glass down onto a conveyor belt the conveyor belt takes the glass up to a crusher the nice thing is that even broken glass can be recycled because as we know glass is glass and glass breaks the crusher helps break the bottles down into usable pieces and can even be recycled when the labels and bottle caps are still in place [Music] after the crusher it goes into a revolving trommel screen this machine helps separate the glass and the contaminants you know when you smash a glass bottle it breaks into small pieces but if you smash a plastic bottle it just flattens this machine can differentiate between the two and separate them into different piles so as you can see this is a giant tumbler and the holes on this side are smaller than the holes on this side so the particulate falls out and the larger stuff falls here now that we have the broken glass separated into three separate parts the tractor comes back picks up the glass and drops it into a new hopper we still have the metal bottle cast and a few other contaminants inside the broken glass and this machine takes care of that with giant magnets at the top it can pull the metals up and away from the glass shards the magnet will pull out all ferrous metals and inject them into a collection bin where they can also be recycled after the magnets the glass goes into something called a fluidized bed dryer the air is heated to 190 degrees fahrenheit and at that temperature the sugars and bacteria are burned and the label glue is loosened this is the dryer that gets rid of all those labels it's nice that all of these processes don't have to be done by hand after the dryer there is another conveyor belt which takes the broken glass and up to this point all of the glass is still together the different colors when it reaches the top of the conveyor belt it falls a waterfall of glass and the optical sorter uses lasers and puffs of air to sort the glass into different areas and sort particles up to 3 8 of an inch pretty small the reason we do this is because the glass has different makeups the optical sorter behind me can shoot out 20 000 pieces of brown glass and ceramic every single minute every time one of the lights blings it's a puff of air blowing away a piece of ceramic or brown glass after the optical sorter we come over here to a hammer mill which pulverizes the glass and brings it to this guy which is the sorter the polarized glass then gets dropped in a giant bin so it's super loud in there and i'm pretty sure my camera is covered in glass but basically if there's any pieces of glass that are still too big after the sorter they go back to the pulverizer and repeat the process until it's super fine material the superfine particulate or collet as they call it is pumped up into these giant silos and then trucked off in semis to either make new glass bottles or something that you're probably not expecting the pulverized glass dust is the basic ingredient in making new glass it uses 40 percent less energy and as a bonus reduce the amount of raw materials that need to be mined out of the earth owens corning is another facility located close by me right here in utah they take advantage of these benefits to turn the dust from my broken bottles into another glass product blow in insulation for homes and buildings and yes the corning in owens corning is the same corning that makes gorilla glass but instead of gorillas this time it's pro pink pink panther insulation let's see how that glass bottle dust has turned into the pink insulation that keeps houses warm it's a rather fascinating process first the semi-truck containing that cullet or powdered recycled glass pulls up to the giant silo at owens corning and pumps its entire load of glass bits into the massive silos at the top of the building each day a sifter proportions the different ingredients used for the fiberglass insulation into a holding hopper above the furnace 55 of which is that recycled glass we saw earlier the holding hopper lets the glass slowly trickle into the giant furnace where it's heated to nearly 3000 degrees the furnace here at owens corning is super interesting since it doesn't use any fossil fuels to operate instead of burning coal to run their melter owens corning melts their glass entirely with 100 percent renewable wind energy i had no idea this was even possible until now but how does electricity melt the glass with super massive electrodes quick pause for a second the electrodes inside of the giant furnace are actually these guys right here super super heavy with the massive copper end on the back this is what a brand new one looks like but after a period of time inside of the furnace this is what they end up as because the glass inside as we know is a level six on most scale of hardness and deteriorates or corrodes the electrode while it's inside of there the glass is just circulating like a giant melting pot all the electrodes inside the furnace are creating electric arcs from tip to tip kind of like iron man's arc reactor and just zapping electricity from point to point to keep that glass molten hot and how much electricity does that take a glass melter of this size uses anywhere from 2.5 to 3.5 megawatts of electricity the white crust on the surface of the molten glass is used to help regulate the temperature of that red-hot liquid underneath like a blanket it's interesting that when the glass is in its solid state it does not conduct electricity it is an insulator as we know since we're currently making insulation but when the glass is molted or in its liquid state it does conduct electricity the white smoke you saw coming out of the tower earlier is just water vapor that's coming from the cooling and air purification system the red and blue tube running around the outside of the melter helps keep the electrodes and the sidewalls cool after the glass has been melted it flows like a red molten river through these brick pathways to what we call the fiberizers we're still in the upper levels of the factory at the moment using gravity to drop the 2000 degree molten glass onto spinners which fling the glass into super fine fibrous threads kinda like cotton candy except for not we did however arrive just in time for some scheduled maintenance anytime a fiberizer needs parts replaced they channel the molten glass away from the unit where it gets sent off to shatter in cold water and become like the little pieces of cola we saw earlier since glass can be infinitely recycled they don't waste any of it here so when the glass is diverted away from those cotton candy machines it ends up being brought back out and this broken glass can be reused in the system as many times as they need to nothing's going to waste and when the fiberizer is done having parts replaced they can start dripping glass down into the top again to continue its production of forbidden cotton candy the fiber that comes out of these fiberizers is white and feels as soft as cotton it's safe to touch with my bare hands what's interesting about the fiber though is that it's bio-soluble meaning that if you do accidentally breathe in the fibers they won't cause damage to your lungs this same white fluff is even used for the composite fibers in space suits this yellow conveyor belt you see here is sitting right below the fiberizers collecting the soft bed of white cloud-like glass and transports it down to the hammer mill kind of like we saw at the recycling center except for instead of breaking up glass shards this is breaking up the mata fluff into much smaller blowable pieces of insulating material finally down here at the bottom on the main level is where we add the trademarked pink pigment so everyone can tell the difference between the pro pink pink panther brand insulation and the other stuff finally robotic arms collect the pink insulation into bags and load it onto pallets for easy shipping everywhere across the country it's crazy to think that the 15 bottles i was holding at the beginning of this video now have turned into just one of these bags of insulation and the nice part is that it takes 40 percent less energy to turn recycled glass into something new than it does to make glass from scratch it's a win for the planet on multiple levels i know that i personally will make more of an effort going forward into the future to recycle my glass since it's way better off being reused and turn into something new like bottles or insulation to keep homes comfortable both of which are way better options than spending the next million years in a landfill not all trash is garbage as you've seen some of it can be recycled into brand new stuff so taking steps to reduce the amount of garbage we produce is important but equally important is to take the garbage out of places it doesn't belong which is where team sees comes in team sees has successfully funded the removal of 30 million pounds of trash from the oceans which is a very impressive and successful endeavor but with 7 billion people on the planet that trash just keeps on coming i noticed that linus tech tips removed 25 069 pounds of trash from the ocean and i think we can outdo them i say we because this is all made possible since you guys watch my videos so with team jerryrig's 25 690 pounds of trash removed that puts us right on top of linus that donation link is still up at teamsees.org you can still donate if you haven't already but most importantly just make sure you're not throwing away things that are still useful and can be turned into something new like glass plastics or metals all of that is still very valuable huge thanks to momentum recycling and owens corning for their factory tours they're doing their part to reduce waste for sure and let me know down in the comments what else you would like to see recycled i think making videos like this is pretty fun hit that subscribe button if you haven't already come hang out with me on instagram and twitter and thanks a ton for watching i'll see you around

Channel: JerryRigEverything

Views: 8,048,825

Keywords: Glass recycling, how to recycle glass, can glass be recycled, recycling, glass recycling, recycling 101, recycling glass, glass recycling process, glass recycling business, glass recycling machine, glass recycling plant, glass recycling ideas, glass recycling factory, team seas

Id: LR9FtWVjk2c

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/work_alt_1]

He very quickly moved past the coolest part of this entire video, the optical sorter. Honestly, I feel like that thing needs to have it's own video! That shit sounds crazy complicated.

[u/Orkaad]

(you might be surprised)

That's some real clickbait title.

But he has over 7M subscribers so he must be doing something right.

[u/A_Harmless_Fly]

What makes the fiber safe to handle?

[u/backyard_beach]

Yikes, how does he not have a respirator on?

[u/Factory_Supervisor]

Good content. I've seen a lot of stuff that makes me loose faith that recycling is even happening - appears we at least have glass sorted out.

[u/Menulem]

We had crushed beer bottles as a blinding on a building site once, they didn't wash them and it smelled fuckin awful. Good blinding tho.

[u/xaaar]

TeamSeas is ineffective on its own.

[u/Shalmanese]

I didn't quite catch it, does anyone know what % less energy it is to use recycled glass?