Reuse of waste glass powder from a circular economy perspective

Glass powder is a waste that is generated in the glass recycling production chain which, due to its quantities and the limited field of application in recipes that can generate finished products, creates a disposal and reuse problem .

Among the various experiments that have been carried out over the years, perhaps the use of it as an inert material in mortar and concrete mixtures has found an outlet that allows the creation of road curbs, containment bulkheads also by virtue of good chemical inertia and the low porosity of the compound.

Another field of use worth mentioning are cement mixtures suitable for the creation of artificial furnishing stones.

Tests were also carried out at the Engineering Department of the University of Bologna on polymeric mortars with fractions of glass dust and glass scrap, with different grain sizes, using a polyester resin as a binder.

The tests were carried out by sampling recipes composed of sand and polyester resin and recipes composed of poor or scrap glass and polyester resin.

The comparison of the results of the flexural and compression tests of the specimens highlighted that the polymeric mortars composedof glassy waste have a compressive strength greater than 10% and a flexural strength of 22% compared to the samples composed of polymeric mortars and sand.

Glass powder is also used in the ceramic field, in clay bricks and in glass foams as an inert element of the mixture to replace natural aggregates with a saving in terms of consumption of natural resources.

The characteristics of glass cullet, from the point of view of chemical stability, fire-retardant qualities and mechanical resistance , allows its use as a stabilizer in recipes for the protection of dangerous elements such as eternit, fly ash from incinerators, in fume abatement, in steel mill slag, in sanding sludge , etc. in order to create an inert glassy material.

But from a circular economy perspective, the most important step was taken through the creation of a mixture of waste elements in industrial processes, one of which can be defined as the waste of waste . I am referring to the PET dust that accumulates in the recycling phase of beverage bottles or other packaging.

The winning idea of mixing glass powder and PET powder allows you to create a new raw material which, due to its physical-chemical characteristics, is suitable for replicating natural stones, both in shape and characteristics. Furthermore, the thermoplasticity of PET, which allows the creation of designs, reliefs and easily adapts to colours, makes this compound suitable for the creation of kitchen tops and for internal and external coverings.

The ingenuity and genius of people give us a snapshot of how our society is dealing with the challenges that the circular economy poses to us: we find people who do not yet know how to separate waste at home, people who continue to throw waste into the environment, people who push the political class to invest more in the recycling of plastic, glass, metals, paper, wood and electronic waste and other materials, and finally there are people who are one step ahead and deal with finding solutions for using waste waste.

Category: news - technical - plastic - recycling - glass powder - PET