Processing glass is our specialty.

Glass collected at the curbside is usually commingled, meaning that different colors and types of glass are collected together. Although all glass is made of silica and soda, the type and quantity vary slightly with different types of glass. Different melting points and chemical incompatibility make it important to sort glass by type. 

Strategic Materials's finely tuned production processes use a series of equipment to process the various types of inbound glass material to meet and exceed our customer specifications. 

  • Crushers and screens are used to size the material to either course 5/8’ size which is primarily used in the container industry or to a fine grind powder which is used by the fiberglass and specialty products customers.
  • Fine grind material also goes thru a drying process to insure proper material flow thru the screening and silo storage process. 
  • Optical sorters are used to separate the various glass colors from each other (clear glass from brown from green). 
  • Sorters are also used to separate ceramic and stone contamination from good glass. 
  • Magnets of all types and vacuum systems are used to further clean up the glass stream by removing ferrous and non-ferrous metals and light material (paper & organics) from heavier glass fragments.

Learn how using recycled glass helps the environment.