Glass up-casting: a review on the current challenges in glass recycling and a novel approach for recycling “as-is” glass waste into volumetric glass components

This paper presents the casting of volumetric glass components from glass waste as an alternative glass-recycling approach. The approach is characterized by its flexibility to accommodate a variety of compositions and ability to yield volumetric (solid or thick-walled) glass products that can tolerate higher contamination rates without a...

On the flexural strength and stiffness of cast glass

Cast glass has great potential for diverse load-bearing, architectural applications; through casting, volumetric glass components can be made that take full advantage of glass’s stated compressive strength. However, the lack of engineering, production and quality control standards for cast glass and the intertwined ambiguities over its...

Investigating the flexural strength of recycled cast glass

Currently, tons of high quality commercial glass are down-cycled or landfilled due to contaminants that prevent close-loop recycling. Yet, this glass is potentially a valuable resource for casting robust and aesthetically unique building components. Exploring the potential of this idea, different types of non-recyclable silicate glasses are...

Re^3 glass a reduce/reuse/recycle strategy

The applicability of glass in structures is continuously ascending, as the transparency and high compressive strength of the material render it the optimum choice for realizing diaphanous structural components that allow for light transmittance and space continuity. The fabrication boundaries of the material are constantly stretching: visible...

Structural cast glass components manufactured from waste glass: Diverting everyday discarded glass from the landfill to the building industry

Although in theory glass can be endlessly re-melted without loss in quality, in practice only a small percentage gets recycled, mainly by the packaging industry. Most of the discarded glass fails to pass the high quality standards of the prevailing glass industry – due to coatings, adhesives, other contaminants or incompatibility of the recipe –...

Cast Glass Components out of Recycled Glass: Potential and Limitations of Upgrading Waste to Load-bearing Structures

Although in theory glass can be endlessly remelted without loss in quality, in practice only a small percentage gets recycled, mainly by the packaging industry. Most of the discarded glass fails to pass the high quality standards of the prevailing glass industry -due to coatings, adhesives, other contaminants or incompatibility of the recipe-...