by Mosh*ta Prajapati | May 11, 2018, 12:00 AM IST
Closeup of beer bottles crushed into fine glass. This mixture is fed into the glass furnace and new bottles are made from molten glass. Info and image: Columbine Glass Company
Short answer: YES
Finely-crushed glass is basically a pure form of sand. When you grind down crushed glass to a fine powder, the difference between glass and sand is negligible at best; natural sand is made of quartz crystals of silicon dioxide and glass is the non-crystalline, amorphous form of silicon dioxide.
Crushed glass is now being used as sand filler in popular beaches across the world.
Sand is used in everything, especially in construction – it is a major ingredient in mortar, plaster, concrete, asphalt, etc. For this, individuals often resort to dredging sand from beaches. Naturally, sand erosion on beaches is another worry arising from the growing decrease in the availability of naturally occurring sand.
In New Zealand, for instance, in a bid to battle the sand erosion on its pristine beaches, the country has adopted a bottle-to-sand policy. New Zealand brewery DB Breweries launched a campaign, under which beer bottles are crushed to create pure sand.
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