RyanVolle Posted April 15, 2012 I just got this fact not 5 minutes ago. A glass bottle takes a million years to decay. Now I'm curious as to what decomposes the glass and maybe we can do something to speed up the process? If we reuse/recycle a ton of paper, we save 24 trees. 24. I turn them into the Black Gold. Gardeners know what that is ;) If we compost, not only do we give something back to nature, we also lessen the mass of the stinky, poisonous dump site. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Goldtop Posted April 15, 2012 They recycle glass dont they? Its a process of remelting it to a liquid then reshaping Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RyanVolle Posted April 15, 2012 how do you make glass into sand again? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waterboy 2.0 Posted April 15, 2012 Put it into concrete as aggregate - glasscrete 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Goldtop Posted April 15, 2012 how do you make glass into sand again? how do you turn paper back into a tree? They just keep reusing the product. Ya wouldnt bother making glass back to sand, we havent got the time, whats done is done, they just recycle the shit out of it, instead of making more from scratch. Pretty crazy for it taking a million years tho, i wonder if theres a different decay rating for crushed glass compared to a solid piece. That would be one way of speeding the process i guess Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
paradox Posted April 19, 2012 i don't see why you'd need to break down glass bottles back into sand, apart from the energy consumption of their manufacture & maybe sheer mass (when compared to sandy 'wastelands' like the sahara it pales in signifigance) they don't represent any kind of environmental problem do they? actually they can provide convenient habitat for many species & are pretty useful objects.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dionysus Posted April 19, 2012 how do you turn paper back into a tree? well, i suppose you could always pulp it up and use as fertilizer, essentialy placing atoms from the paper into part of a living tree... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Alice Posted April 19, 2012 You can't use paper pulp as fertiliser. Plants get their carbon from the air. You could however burn the paper to make CO2. Volle, is there much of a recycling program in the Philippines? Here in Australia, I would say that 95% of domestic glass would be collected for recycling, not landfill. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dionysus Posted April 19, 2012 paper rots, though, it would start a cycle of fertilisation and cellular resource recycling, however long. at any rate, i just mean turning paper back into a tree would be a slightly different process to glass-sand alchemy. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RyanVolle Posted April 19, 2012 (edited) You can't use paper pulp as fertiliser. Plants get their carbon from the air. You could however burn the paper to make CO2. Volle, is there much of a recycling program in the Philippines? Here in Australia, I would say that 95% of domestic glass would be collected for recycling, not landfill. sorry.don't know and i'd sure love to hate people who put organic matter to landfills i'd wanna keep the plastic containers to be plant containers though o kinda lack a lot of pots for a lot and i mean a lot of chia seeds im trying to grow an orange bonsai and it's cool cuz one of the seeds had 2 sprouts, one seed = 2 sprouts < how is that even possible? Edited April 19, 2012 by Volle Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
applesnail Posted April 19, 2012 i wonder who proved this fact considering homosapien fossils date back to half a million years and glass was apparently first invented 3000BC...i wonder who timed it takes a million years to break down...one for mythbusters perhaps... http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/question/?id=1522 http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/glass.htm http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_ago_was_the_year_3000_bc Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sallubrious Posted April 19, 2012 and it's cool cuz one of the seeds had 2 sprouts, one seed = 2 sprouts That's called polyembyrony when the seed contains more than 1 embryo I've seen glass break down in a very short time, it's not a biological process though just a mechanical process. The ferals morons locals around my place just smash their bottles on the road and then car tyres magically grind them and carry them away in less than a week. A modern solution to a modern problem. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ThunderIdeal Posted April 19, 2012 mythbusters are a band of clowns, what are those people that do actual science? sciencists? one for those mob, me thinks. does glass present a grave environmental problem? glass is something like a hard, brittle rock. man-made but a rock nonetheless. plastic is the persistent waste that is going to prove a real nightmare. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
