What is Glass?

Glass is a solid material that can be made into many different shapes.

It is usually transparent or translucent, and it can also be made in colours.

Glass is made from silica sand, sodium carbonate and limestone which are heated to 1700°C until they melt to form a liquid; when this liquid cools, glass is formed.

Glass is often used to make windows, cups, jars and bottles.

Watch how they make glass in Dartington, Devon here.

Discover

Reduce

Find out how to reduce use of glass

Reuse

Find out how to reuse glass

Recycle

Find out about recycling glass

Activities

Glass Worksheets KS1

Glass Worksheets KS3/4

Glass Worksheets: Home Activity

Glass Worksheets KS2

Glass Worksheets

Global Issues

Climate Change
Sustainable Development Goals
Circular Economy
Recycling just one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes, a TV for 20 minutes, or a washing machine for 10 minutes.
By recycling glass you also help conserve habitats from being mined to obtain more silica, limestone and other natural resources required to make it.
Glass is 100% recyclable and can be recycled an infinite number of times without loss of quality, strength and functionality.
Recycled glass is sorted by colour, which can be done using a laser beam. The laser detects the colour of the glass and sends a signal to shoot a burst of air, pushing the glass into separate coloured piles.
When lightning strikes sand, the heat sometimes fuses the sand into long, slender glass tubes called fulgurites. The intense heat of a volcanic eruption sometimes fuses rocks and sand into a glass called obsidian.
Germany remains the EU’s biggest producer with about one fifth of the volume, closely followed by France, Spain, Italy and the UK.