How can Glass Recycling Help Your Business?

19th Apr 2024

The way you recycle glass at your workplace can have a dramatic effect on your overheads, your operations and your environmental impact. To find the best method for your workplace you need to consider the waste itself, the frequency it's collected and any applicable workplace legislation. This article examines the key considerations you need to evaluate before deciding how to recycle glass at work.

Recycling glass at commercial premises: Common problems

Limited space: Empty glass bottles and jars take up a huge amount of space in bins because they’re mostly just air. Businesses operating from sites with limited space struggle to find sufficient secure storage space for voluminous glass bottle waste that leads to the need for more frequent collections.
High glass collection costs: Almost all waste collectors charge for waste bottle collections due to the low commodity value of glass waste (approximately £5-£36 per tonne for coloured mixed glass in August 2026). Bins of glass need to be manually loaded onto the back of a lorry and the cost of hiring people to do this work is on the rise leading to rising charges.
Lack of time: The rising cost of wages are forcing many businesses to operate with smaller teams. As a result, employers need to find new ways to recycle glass that don't involve employees making an excessive number of trips to and from a bin store.
Noise disturbance: Businesses must be respectful of neighbouring domestic and commercial properties when deciding on the most appropriate method and timing of glass recycling at their premises to prevent clinking bottles from causing issues. This can create a scheduling clash with their waste contractor.
Contamination: Traditional commercial glass bins can only be used for the disposal of clean glass bottles and jars that previously contained food or drinks. Employees will need to ensure that any food waste has been removed before disposal to ensure bottles and jars can be turned into new products. Businesses must make separate arrangements with a registered waste carrier for the disposal of other types of glass waste such as broken drinking glasses etc.

Recycling glass at commercial premises: Common solutions

Time your glass waste collections appropriately: Scheduling waste collections at a time that minimises potential disturbance to others will help to preserve neighbourly relations.
Use a glass crusher: Some businesses choose to crush glass waste at their own premises before it's transported to a recycling facility to make it more efficient to store and transport.
Select your glass bin size carefully: Lack of space for commercial bins can be overcome by enquiring with your glass collector about their range of bin sizes and collection frequency. Commercial glass waste produced by businesses is typically deposited in mixed glass bins that are 240L or 140L in size.
Book a waste audit: Inviting a glass recycling specialist like QCR to your premises can help you learn about the various glass recycling options available to businesses.

The primary benefits of recycling glass at work

To be more environmentally friendly: By diverting glass from landfill, you play your part in preserving natural resources. Glass takes roughly one million years to break down in nature, so can sit in the oceans or landfills for an eternity if not disposed of responsibly. By disposing of used glass bottles and jars in an environmentally responsible way, they can be transformed into new products.
To comply with glass recycling legislation: Most businesses in the UK need to comply with a set of rules relating to the disposal of bottles and jars made from glass known as the 'Simpler Recycling' legislation.
Improve workplace safety: Glass bottles can break and broken glass is a workplace hazard, so it makes sense to have clear procedures in place showing employees how to recycle it safely to prevent the risk of injury.
Lower glass disposal fees: By diverting glass from the UK's landfill sites and instead sending it for recycling, you can substantially reduce your commercial waste disposal fees because you won't pay landfill tax.

Why crush bottles?

Crushing bottles at work Businesses don’t always have the luxury of huge amounts of space or budget for waste disposal. Crushing glass bottles and jars is proven to help businesses to optimise workspace, keep glass collection costs low whilst also reducing their carbon footprint. Operational benefits include:

Instant results: Bottle crushing equipment instantly transforms a whole bottle into glass fragments. The size of the glass pieces produced varies depending on the equipment you use.
Saves space: The size of a standard wine bottle is approximately 30cm x 8cm which can be reduced to around one-fifth of its original size by using an entry level glass crusher such as QCR GC01 (pictured here).
Reduced overheads: The cost you pay for glass disposal is linked to the number of glass bins you fill. By crushing a bottle before it's put into a glass recycling bin, you reduce the overall size of it. Therefore by crushing your empty bottles, more bottles will fit into each of your bins. For businesses who are billed by their Waste Collection Company based on the number or size of bins they fill, financial savings can be made.
Glass crusher availability: There are a wide variety of glass crushing machines available to buy or to hire to crush whole bottles and jars into smaller glass pieces. The degree to which a bottle is crushed varies on the type of machine you use. Some machines produce glass cullet, while some other types can reduce a whole bottle into a sand-like material.

How to calculate the benefits of crushing glass

Evaluating the benefits of crushing glass bottles and jars at your premises can be measured in many ways. Examples include:

Time: If your employees spend two hours walking to and from external glass bins each week, the opportunity cost is the two hours of other tasks that could have been completed instead if you implemented a better procedure.
Space: If a business uses lots of space to store bins the opportunity cost is the turnover it could have made by using the space for revenue generation instead as a result of changing the way glass waste is recycled at its premises.
Financial: If you currently spend £1000 on bins for glass, the opportunity cost is the reduction in commercial bin costs you could get by switching to a glass crusher instead.

Next steps: Book a free glass recycling appraisal with QCR Recycling Equipment by contacting the team on 01242 620903. The team at QCR can set-up a free glass crusher trial so you can accurately calculate how imporved glass recycling procedures can aid your business.

Glass Recycling: FAQ's

1. Will England's Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) include glass bottles in 2027?

No. Glass bottles are excluded from the DRS scheme at its launch in England in October 2027.

2. Why is glass recycling expensive for businesses?

Glass bottles are heavy and fragile, making them more costly for registered waste carriers to colect transport to a recycling facility.

Article updated: September 2026 by Neil Holland

QCR's Neil Neil and the team at QCR Recycling Equipment (QCR) travel across the UK helping businesses to improve glass recycling and maintain compliance with their waste duty of care.