Reuse of glass containers is preferable to recycling according to the waste hierarchy. Refillable bottles are used extensively in many European countries and, until relatively recently, in the United States. In Denmark 98% of bottles are refillable and 98% of those are returned by consumers. These systems are usually supported by container deposit laws, taxes, and other regulations.
Restaurants and bars could contribute some of the 600,000 tones of glass they generate each year, 80 percent of which is chucked into landfill. The exceptions include the Strada restaurant chain and Young’s pubs. Their glass is now recycled by an innovative firm, Smash & Grab
www.smashgrab.co.uk, which rescues the equivalent of 625,000 wine bottles from landfills each year. Considering how much glass goes to waste and the benefit of recycling glass, innovative thinkers
are seeing opportunities. Many corporations hire companies to sift through their employee trash, not for corporate secrets, but to reclaim valuable resources through recycling.