Australia's Recycled Glass Problem

This does not sit well with our team here at Dirt Cheap Rubbish Removal. Unfortunately, we don’t have much to do with the recycling/disposal side of things, as we just collect from homes and business and take to the appropriate recycling or disposal facility. We’re more in the business of large items that can’t fit in the curbside bin, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about this type of garbage too! If we all ignore the problem, it is likely that nothing will happen, and these environmentally destructive practices will continue. You can do your part by reducing the amount of waste that you produce. In New South Wales alone, there is around 460,000 tonnes of used glass produced every year, if everyone tried to reduce the amount of glass waste they produce, thousands of tonnes could easily be saved.

As disturbing as some of these news stories are, we’re happy to see them – we feel there needs to be more awareness around rubbish related issues. What we like the most is the response that is received from them. When enough people hear things like this, some of them act upon it, and there is a lot of talk about how Australia can overcome this glass waste problem. One option that some other countries currently use is making compulsory designs to glass packaging, so that instead of turning items into glass pieces and then recreating products, items are just washed and sterilised and then sold to be used again. This solution would be ideal, however, it’s never going to cover everything, as a lot of glass would get broken in the process and need to go through a normal recycling process. We hope that technology improves enough in the near future so that Australia can efficiently recycle everything locally, the addition of packaging restrictions would be a bonus!