Energy and environmental analysis of glass container production and recycling

This work aims at examining, from an energy and environmental standpoint, one production cycle which is extremely energy-consuming, namely the glass production for drink containers. More specifically, the industrial process is first analysed as is, so as to evaluate and assess its energy needs and its associated environmental impact. As a second step the influence of glass container recycle and reuse on energy consumption and pollutant emission is investigated. To this end the recycling chain operation is illustrated and appropriate working hypotheses for the modified process are formulated, so that its energy and environmental performance can be evaluated. Finally, the two production scenarios are compared by means of LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) methodology, to the purpose of determining the best recycling percentage for glass containers from the standpoint of energy consumption and pollutant emission minimization, taking also into account the waste legislation currently in force. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.