| Interesting Facts |
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Kiwi Ingenuity Leads To Novel Glass Recycling
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 Mountains of glass are consumed by New Zealand every year, amounting to more than 200,000 tonnes.
Most of what is recycled is melted down to make more bottles, but the rest is popping up in places you would least expect.
Excess glass is already being crushed for use in tiles, roading and construction.
Now a Christchurch company has found it has the perfect substitute for sand at golf courses, using it as a top-dressing on the greens and in the bunkers.
“What we’re using here is not the finest quality that we have, but the weight is good and it doesn’t blow away so it works well in the golf courses,” Ian Hay from TerraNova told 3 News.
Experts say it is better to play from than some natural sands and with some sands becoming difficult to source, glass is proving to be a good alternative.
Sandihurst Vineyard has been trialling crushed glass as a mulch under its vines which has been producing good results. Researchers say glass may prove to be as good a tool for growing grapes as bottling them.
Until now, the cost of transportation has made it uneconomic for small towns to recycle glass, especially in the South Island. But now there is a mobile crusher that can come to them.
The crusher is the only one of its kind in the country and can get through 12 tonnes of glass in one hour.
But with New Zealanders getting through a lot more empties than that, there is still more bottles that we know what to do with.
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January 2nd, 2008
Photo: 3 News
Source: 3 News |
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