"Huge" wrote in message
...
"David Hearn" writes:

"Huge" wrote in message
...
"David Hearn" writes:
Why does recycled goods have to be cheaper than non-recycled?

Because the costs reflect the difficulty of obtaining whatever it is
(or
at least, should). If obtaining 'x' new is cheaper than obtaining it
by recycling, then the recycling is pointless. Take paper. Recycled
paper
is more expensive than new, not as good quality and requires nasty
chemicals
(bleach) for recycling. Where's the point in that? Ditto glass. There
is
no market for glass cullet in the UK. All recycled glass has to be used
for
landfill or road surfacings. Where's the point in that?


http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/envirow...HQX?OpenDocume
nt

"Producing glass using recycled cullet is more energy efficient than
producing glass from basic raw materials (typically by about 30%)."

"Except in more remote areas, where transport costs may be dominant, the
economics are usually in favour of recycling. The key issue is one of
cullet
quality."


http://www.wrap.org.uk/publications/...tionSept03.doc

"The UK production of glass fibre insulation is around 150,000 tonnes per
year and currently all the glass fibre manufacturers are using recycled
glass as a feedstock."


http://www.edinburgh-crystal.co.uk/story015.asp

"Currently about 30% of glass melted was originally cullet and so the
re-melting process is fairly waste free."

Err, yes, but I doubt they use supermarket bottle bank cullet.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/...g/report/4.htm

"It is estimated that there is approximately twice the capacity for clear
and amber cullet usage within the container glass industry than is
currently
collected."

So - plenty of uses for cullent (not just what you'd expect) along with
currently twice the capacity of clear/amber cullet compared to what
they're
collecting. THEY NEED MORE!

Blimey. I stand corrected. That's what you get for reading the popular
media.

(As it happens we recycle glass anyway, because the bottles are too
heavy to go in the plastic sacks, but that's beside the point.)

Seems that there's too much green cullet though... we import so many green
bottles of wine/lager and use so little of it ourselves. Maybe that's what
gets used for road surfaces?

D