The Framers Forum

What is the best way of disposing of waste glass? I have heard there may be companies that will pick up waste glass, how do others do it?

Mine just goes in my big waste bin along with everything else. I do want to have seperate bins for cardboard but they say i don produce enough glass to warrant having a dedicated recycling bin. I produce a bout a wheelie bin full every 6 - 8 weeks.

mine goes in my recyling bins

one of the reasons i chose the waste compeny i use is that they took glass in recyling

I think Glass & Mirror do a recycling service by providing you with a container and they swap it over for an empty one when making glass deliveries. You might need to check they still do this but when I looked a couple of years back it was something like £1 per week.

Mine goes to the local non local authority recycling centre but like Cloughie he does like a bung!

Our local waste collection company deals with glass recycling for us - we have one wheelie bin for glass, one for cardboard and one for general waste. All are collected on a fortnightly basis (but on different days). We could change the collection period to a few times a week or as little as once a month if we wanted to. These days with spot checks being done on businesses to make sure they have waste disposal contracts in place (the Environment Agency did a check in this area a few years back and gave out loads of fines), it is worth getting it all sorted out properly. Most waste companies we spoke to dealt with glass without any problem as long as we could ensure it wasn't mixed with anything else.

Thanks for the suggestions, there are a couple I might follow up.

We actually do recycle our properly, as technicaly it is a controlled waste and the LA may wish to see your disposal route.

Ours goes back to our glass suppliers, for about a fiver a container. We did use glass and mirror, until we found our glass from a cheaper supplier.

We use Glass & Mirror. £50 a year and £2 a box might not be the cheapest way of getting rid of glass waste, but with the box sitting underneath my Excalibur its quick, easy, and emptied with each glass delivery. Plus, of course, fully legal should anyone come knocking.

Going on from glass waste which I now have covered with two options. I have planning application in for change of use and conversion of a room to a photo studio. Environmental people are bing a real pain. I mentioned that I get rid of a lot of offcuts of mount board to schools who use it for projects. They seem to be non too happy about that. I have two wood buring stoves in my house so I have used offcuts of wooden mouldings as kindling. Apparently I may be breaking the law. I also use some of the natural wood shavings in my smoker for beekeeping, I do a few ash frames so this is ideal.......again I might need an exemption license. What is the world coming to?

None of the schools, pre-schools, toddler groups etc round here will take mountboard offcuts because of the bevel edges. Any mountboard scraps are either given away to artists etc (for a charity donation) or sent for recycling.

This is another one we recycle. We do let drop-outs go to whoever wants them - with the "caveat emptor" warning, but don't let it go to schools. However 99% goes for recycling for free and we get a huge wheelie skip free. Apparently it all goes to China. The waste company rep asked me what sized skip we wanted and I replied - the smallest. She laughed and said we would need this 4 x 3 skip with wheels. This week we had to yell at them for coming two days late as there were offcuts everywhere and the bin was overflowing. May need the even larger version now.

Going back to glass disposal, I think Hintons do recycling boxes for glass offcuts. I seem to recall it wasn't very cheap and I guess they only do it if you buy your glass through them. Might be worth checking out though.

Glass is made from sand so I dispose of mine in the most environmentally way by returning it from whence it came. Fly-tipping on Littlehampton beach.

I melt mine down and make wine glasses.

Sandy that you live close to a beach

I find that lobbing it out of the car window on the M25 rids me of the problem. I got the idea from watching people dispose of their McDonald's wrappers, coke cans, water bottles in a similar manner. It also provides a useful supply of glass for any road users who may need an emergency replacement for a broken windscreen, although I don't provide the tape for them to piece the bits together.

I chuck my scrap into the various cardboard boxes that I always seen to have an endless supply of. When they are full I wrap them with handywrap which makes a neat, easily handled lump. Then I put them in a wheel barrow and take them down to the chicken shed and add them to the growing stack. The shed is 30ft long x 12ft wide so I doubt if I will ever fill it.

If I do fill it, I will hire a tipper truck, load up and head for the beach at Littlehampton.

Or..... one day there might be a ready market for scrap glass and then I'll be laffing all the way to the bank. > <


Here's an interesting conjecture..

If you take your scrap glass home and shove it in your landfill bin, you would probably get prosecuted from ###hole to Christmas.

But, the term scrap is just a word. who's to say it is rubbish? It's prime stock if I say it is. And as such I can sell it. I can sell it for whatever price I choose. I'm in business. I can sell it to my next-door neighbour and make out an invoice for 5p + vat @20% per barrowload. It's gone then. Not my problem. Of course the neighbour would be quite entitled to heave it all in his wheelie bin. Technically it is not 'trade waste' anymore. What a good chap he would be and well deserving of the big bottle of 20 year old single malt he got for Christmas.

Roboframer wrote:Glass is made from sand so I dispose of mine in the most environmentally way by returning it from whence it came. Fly-tipping on Littlehampton beach.

We are a bit far from the sea so perhaps I will lobb it all in the sand pit at the local pre-school. Alternatively we do have plenty of sand and gravel pits locally most have signs up saying Nature Reserve whatever that might mean

What about the long jump pit at your local athletics club, I'msure they would be grateful.

Go out and buy a biggish mircowave oven. Any one will do, as long as it has a big box. Fill the box with scrap glass and reseal it. Then go out somewhere and leave the box unattended. Maybe in the car with the boot/hatch open. With luck, some bugger will nick it.

If you don't want the microwave, put it on EBay. (no box).

A method I heard of a good few years ago, I think it was a picture framer, who thought it up, needed the conical type of coal hods used for filling Aga solid fuel stoves. These were robust galvanized iron containers, in which the glass could be further broken up with an iron bar. When full they were taken to the nearest bottle bank and the broken glass could be poured through the access port-holes.