Circular Economy: Material Flows and Sustainable Materials – Practical Applications

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3.18

Ragn-Sells’ Flat Glass Recycling

In this step we’ll focus on the Swedish waste management and recycling company Ragn-Sells’ newly developed flat window glass recycling solution. Instead of sending it all to landfill, clean and unbroken glass can now be recycled.

Globally, only an estimated 21 percent of all produced glass is recycled. Container glass (for drinks, food) achieves the highest rate, reaching approximately 32 percent of its total output. This figure contrasts sharply with flat glass, such as that used in windows, which maintains a significantly lower recycling rate of only about 11 percent.

Ragn-Sells has developed a recycling solution for flat glass through a key partnership with manufacturer Saint-Gobain. The process involves collecting old window glass from demolition projects, using specialized machinery to separate frames, and utilizing advanced optical sorting at the new Örebro facility to achieve the high material purity required for reprocessing.

This system guarantees the resulting high-quality cullet (crushed glass) can be remelted into new windows, preventing landfill disposal or downcycling. This effort conserves finite silica sand resources, saves up to thirty percent of the energy consumption, and significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions compared to manufacturing new glass. In the video below you get a quick overview of the process and its environmental impact. English transcript is available here.

As with other recycling processes, production of new glass from virgin materials should be redesigned to make recycling easier and the life-span extended. The flat glass recycling developed by Ragn-Sells also needs to be scaled up, while at the same time the need for new and recycled glass is kept at a sustainable level.

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Ragn-Sells’ Flat Glass Recycling

Further reading, learning and references