2005-1-16
I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development Report.
Recycling makes things like paper or glass or metal useful again.
It means the resources that went into making them were not wasted.
With glass, it is said that for every one thousand kilograms
recycled, one thousand two hundred kilograms of raw materials are
saved. Recycling also means that communities have to deal with less
waste.
The process of recycling can give things not only a new life but,
in some cases, a different one. Glass bottles, for example, can
become drinking glasses.
First, the base is removed from the bottle. Then the bottle is
turned upside down and the neck is attached to the base. The used
bottle that would have been thrown away has now become a good
looking drinking glass.
It is not easy to make this happen, though. The biggest problem
is how to attach the base to the neck of the bottle turned upside
down.
Two South African businessmen, Sean Penrith and Philip Tetley,
looked for a large glass manufacturer that could do it. But they had
no luck. So they experimented for eight months. Many broken bottles
later, they found a way.
Their company, called Green Glass, won a Business of the Year
award in nineteen ninety-four. It was voted among the best new
businesses in South Africa. The inventors received worldwide patent
rights to own the process they developed.
More recently, the Green Glass idea has expanded into markets in
Europe and the United States.
Green Glass U.K. says on its Web site that it now makes one
hundred fifty thousand glasses per year. The factory in Cornwall,
England, employs ten people.
The company says it saves ninety percent of the energy normally
used to make recycled glass. The energy is saved because the glass
is not melted. The glass is heated, however, to strengthen it.
The Green Glass process takes about three hours to make a bottle
into a drinking glass. The bottle goes through seven machines, all
designed and built by the company itself. Broken bottles cannot be
used. So Green Glass U.K. says it must find bottles anywhere it can.
Internet users can see how a drinking bottle becomes a drinking
glass at tradinggreen.co.uk.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Gary
Garriott. I'm Gwen Outen.