Crushed Glass

Crushed Glass Hauling From Mike’s Trucking

Let us take care of your crushed glass hauling needs.

• One time and ongoing hauling support.
• Safe and reliable drivers and trucks.
• Trusted company with over 35 years of experience.

Contact Mike’s Trucking 35 Years of Trucking Excellence

Crushed Glass Aggregate

Recycled Glass is a relatively new construction aggregate material. The term “glass aggregate” includes 100% glass, glass-soil, and glass-aggregate mixtures. Glass aggregate is durable, strong, easy to place, and easy to compact.

Crushed Glass can be used for construction applications including general backfill, roadways, utility backfill, drainage medium, and in miscellaneous uses such as landfill cover and underground storage tank backfill.

Crushed glass or cullet, if properly sized and processed, can exhibit characteristics similar to that of gravel or sand. As a result, it should also be suitable for use as a road base or fill.

When used in construction applications, glass must be crushed and screened to produce an appropriate design gradation.

Uses

There are a variety of uses for recycled glass in construction, when crushed finely it can be used to replace sand, less finely it can be used to replace gravel. Uses include: In aggregate. Back fill for trenches and pipes.

Glass aggregate is typically graded by color and size. Sizes can range from six-inch rocks to gravel-sized pieces to a fine talc-like powder. Polishing, grinding or other exposed aggregate techniques are employed to reveal the glass. Or glass can be seeded on the surface and then exposed.

Crushed Glass Aggregate in Road Construction

Waste glass has been used in highway construction as an aggregate substitute in asphalt paving. Many communities have recently incorporated glass into their roadway specifications, which could help to encourage greater use of the material.

In a project dating back to the 70s in NYC, “Glassphalt” was used to pave the streets around Trump Tower. This process produced pavement that glistened and glowed in the light. Those roads have held up pretty well. It could even be better pavement in certain applications.

Using Crushed Glass has a reciprocal savings in the fact that it cuts local waste disposal costs and Crushed Glass processing is sometimes less expensive than gravel. However, the skid resistance of glass infused pavement is slightly less than standard asphalt. This limits its use to lower speed roadways and prevents it from use on 65 mph highways.

The use of Crushed Glass by state DDOTs is becoming more common. The possibility of using glass cullet in roadway construction avoids expensive sorting to prevent color contamination and presents an opportunity to use glass cullet as an aggregate where aggregate sources are scarce.

Use of Recycled Glass in Concrete

Crushed recycled glass can be used as a complete fine aggregate replacement in concrete,

Glass aggregate can replace part or all of the sand and gravel in concrete, for effects that range from colorful terrazzo, to granite- or marble-like finishes, to concrete that reflects light like a mirror. Glass aggregate can even be used to produce concrete that literally glows.

Glass aggregate can replace part or all of the sand and gravel in concrete, for effects that range from colorful terrazzo, to granite- or marble-like finishes, to concrete that reflects light like a mirror. Glass aggregate can even be used to produce concrete that literally glows.

Compaction

Glass aggregate and glass aggregate blends have favorable compaction characteristics which provide good workability of the material.

The blending of crushed glass with other aggregates in low percentages (<15%) will not noticeably affect the compaction characteristics of the major constituent of the blend. Since glass aggregate has a lower specific gravity than conventional aggregates, compacted blends may have a lower density. This lower density should be accounted for in the project specifications.

The compacted density of 100% glass aggregate and higher percentage blends are relatively insensitive to moisture content. This means that the material can be placed and effectively compacted during wet weather, keeping construction downtime to a minimum.

Environmental Benefits of Recycled Crushed Glass

Why use Crushed Glass?

The concrete industry places a heavy demand on primary aggregate sources; it is estimated that 165 million tons are used annually. There is therefore considerable incentive to develop alternative aggregate sources based on waste materials.

Glass produced from recycled glass reduces related air pollution by 20% and related water pollution by 50%. Recycling glass reduces the space in landfills that would otherwise be taken up by used bottles and jars. Using glass for recycling means there are less glass objects lying around in he landfill or bin.

Crushed Glass is Green

Glass aggregate can also win a project the “green” stamp of approval, since it almost always comes from recycled glass, saving landfill space and requiring no mining.

Conventional concrete aggregate consists of sand (fine aggregate) and various sizes and shapes of gravel or stones (coarse aggregate). However, there is a growing interest in substituting alternative aggregate materials, largely as a potential use for recycled materials.

Recycled glass aggregate is potentially able to improve resistance to freeze–thaw attack, drying shrinkage and abrasion of mortars and concretes thanks to the low porosity and water absorption capacity. Moreover, waste glass can also improve the resistance to high temperatures.  Since the increasing demands in construction as functional, aesthetic, economic and insulating criteria has to be fulfilled, the use of cullet of different colors in concrete materials is a good alternative.

From an engineering standpoint, cullet appears to be an excellent supplement or replacement for gravel in many construction applications.

___________________________________________________________________________

Health and Safety

Some contractors have expressed concern about the health effects of the dust generated from dumping, leveling, and compacting glass aggregate. Bottle glass consists primarily of amorphous, or non-crystalline, silica (2). It is crystalline silica that has been associated with silicosis. Accordingly, OSHA regulations governing the permissible levels of dust classify glass dust as a”nuisance” dust and not a hazardous dust.

Bottle glass, the major source of recycled glass, is “soft” compared to plate glasses and has a different breaking pattern. Broken bottle glass contains very few shards. Also, as glass is crushed, it becomes more rounded and less sharp. As a result, crushed glass aggregate is no more dangerous than crushed rock aggregate. Safety clothing worn for working with crushed rock aggregates is adequate for working with crushed glass.

ORIGIN

Glass is a product of the super cooling of a melted liquid mixture consisting primarily of sand (silicon dioxide) and soda ash (sodium carbonate) to a rigid condition, in which the super cooled material does not crystallize and retains the organization and internal structure of the melted liquid. When waste glass is crushed to sand-like particle sizes, similar to those of natural sand, it exhibits properties of an aggregate material.

In 1994 approximately 9.2 million metric tons (10.2 million tons) of postconsumer glass was discarded in the municipal solid waste stream in the United States. Approximately 8.1 million metric tons (8.9 million tons) or 80 percent of this waste glass was container glass.⁽¹⁾

Equipment

Glass crushing equipment normally used to produce a cullet is similar to rock crushing equipment (e.g., hammermills, rotating breaker bars, rotating drum and breaker plate, impact crushers).⁽⁴⁾ Because MRF glass crushing equipment has been primarily designed to reduce the size or density the cullet for transportation purposes and for use as a glass production feedstock material, the crushing equipment used in MRFs is typically smaller and uses less energy than conventional aggregate or rock crushing equipment. Successful production of glass aggregate using recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) processing equipment (crushers and screens) has been reported.  Magnetic separation and air classification may also be required to remove any residual ferrous materials or paper still mixed in with the cullet.

Due to the relatively low glass-generation rates from small communities, stockpiles of sufficient size need to be accumulated to provide a consistent supply of material in order for glass use to be practical in pavement construction applications.

Let Mike’s Trucking take care of your hauling needs.

Visit our materials stockyard to see what is currently available.