Building Glass into a Circular Economy

Despite the fact that glass is a highly recyclable material, end-of- life building glass is almost never recycled into new glass products.In the UK alone, almost 200,000 tonnes of glass is currently sent to landfill each year. In the EU, the proper recycling of all building glass waste could avoid 925,000 tonnes of landfilled waste every year and save around 1.23 million tonnes of primary raw materials annually. When a building is refurbished, end-of-life façade glass is usually crushed and used as aggregates in road construction. Whilst this is better than sending glass to landfill, the most effective use is to turn glass into new glass products: it can be recycled in this ‘closed loop’ indefinitely.

The process of turning waste flat glass into cullet (crushed waste glass for recycling) is classified as a waste recovery operation and is therefore subject to waste management legislation. This creates a significant burden for the industry, resulting in very little waste glass being recovered.

There are a range of opportunities to recycle and reuse glass. Our guide gives an overview of the options and opportunities available. Tishman Speyer’s approach to their Verde  SW1 refurbishment offers a number of valuable lessons.

This webinar was hosted as part of the UKGBC Circular Economy programme.

R e s o u r c e s

Related

Circular Economy Implementation Packs for Products as a Service and Reuse

UKGBC has published implementation packs on reuse and Products as a Service to assist built environment projects adopt circular economy principles.

Climate Change Mitigation Resource Use Guidance

Circular economy guidance for construction clients: How to practically apply circular economy principles at the project brief stage

Together with its members, UKGBC has produced a circular economy guidance for construction clients, which provides comprehensive practical guidance to support construction clients who want to ask for circular principles in their project briefs for non-domestic built assets.

Climate Change Mitigation Resource Use Guidance

Community led approach to building affordable housing on micro-sites

Framework to build social infrastructure and community wealth while providing homes where they are needed.

Climate Change Mitigation Health, Wellbeing and Social Value Solutions

Local Area Retrofit Accelerator ‘Getting Started Toolkit’

A guide for Local Authorities who want to set up 'Retrofit Facilitation Services' for households in their area.

National and Regional Collaboration Retrofit Guidance