Ontario’s Niagara Region sells its recycled glass for use as sandblast media, but what happens if that market slows? An initiative aims to develop a new market for the post-consumer material.
The Continuous Improvement Fund (CIF) is paying for research that examines the use of mixed glass as a replacement for sand in bio-soil. CIF is a joint industry-government initiative that’s part of Ontario’s extended producer responsibility program for curbside recycling.
“A perceived benefit to using recycled glass in bio-soil for the Region is that its granular sizing can be controlled and be easily reproduced at the Region’s glass processing facility,” according to a blog post about the project. The Niagara Region, a regional municipality, has dual-stream recycling.
Research is currently focused on finding the glass-to-soil mix for optimal growing conditions, as well as examining the physical, chemical, microbiological and leaching characteristics of the recycled glass. The next step will be to test bio-soil containing recycled glass outdoors.
The third step will examine the economic feasibility of using recycled glass in bio-soil.
Photo credit: Huguette Roe/Shutterstock
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