On March 18, Global Recycling Day highlighted the importance of keeping valuable materials in circulation. For glass in particular, recycling offers significant potential: using cullet in float glass production helps reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
Together with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and other partners, the Glas Trösch Group recently participated in the pilot project “Windows of Opportunities.” The project demonstrated that insulating glass from dismantled buildings can be successfully returned to the glass production cycle.
A total of 375 window sashes from a residential building in Winterthur, Switzerland, were dismantled and processed. After separating the insulating glass from the PVC frames and preparing the glass fragments for reuse, more than 2.6 tonnes of recycled glass were reintroduced into the melting furnace of a nearby float glass plant of the Glas Trösch Group. This resulted in CO2 savings of around 1.33 tonnes.
The project shows that recycling post-consumer insulating glass is technically feasible and opens up new opportunities to further develop a closed-loop system for flat glass.
