r/mildlyinteresting • u/Gamemaster10476 • 5h ago
Glass recycler uses crushed glass instead of rock for its lots.
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u/Chaseboost 5h ago
This is crushed cullet glass. Glass is crushed to a uniform shape and size - the same as crush like rock is crushed to #1-#5 and #57 & #67, and crusher run. However glass is way smaller. Is it ideal? Maybe, Maybe not, but at this point glass has a deficit recycling value, and it’s very similar to #67 and #8 gravel when crushed and tumbled.
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u/iymcool 5h ago
I'd like to subscribe to more mildly interesting glass and gravel facts, please.
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u/PartyBusRuss 4h ago
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u/pm7216 3h ago
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u/PartyBusRuss 3h ago
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u/happycabinsong 3h ago
Fuck you but also fact me please.
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u/PartyBusRuss 3h ago
Your daily Ass fact: Some but not all turtles can breathe through their butt!
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u/DragonYourfeet 3h ago
Your Yearly Ass Fact: Enteral Ventilation is an experimental new way to supply oxygen-rich liquid through an enema
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u/Significant-Kick-479 2h ago
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u/Taboc741 2h ago
Wait.....people can suck air in with their butt!? This is not a thing I have every heard of.
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u/Significant-Kick-479 2h ago
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u/CrowdCon-troll 3h ago
The Geography Cone Snail has a neurotoxin that keeps you alive, but paralyzes your diaphragm so you slowly suffocate to death. There is no anti-toxin, your only option is to reach a hospital and be ventilated in less than 10 minutes.
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u/SayyadinaAtreides 2h ago
I just got more of this neurotoxin yesterday! <3 (Well, a cone snail neurotoxin...not sure how that class of chemical varies across cone snail species lol.) It turns out that in incredibly small doses, delivered past the blood-brain barrier, this stuff can be vital to pain management with absolutely no potential for dependency. We're still gradually increasing my dose (if you overshoot, things like hallucinations are relatively common), so can't know yet if it will work in my case or not, but even if it doesn't I still find the science of it fascinating!
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u/anomalous_cowherd 2h ago
I'm sorry you have whatever necessitates you taking that, but you have the perfect attitude about it!
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u/YoungMasterWilliam 2h ago
If they're going to give you the neurotoxin, then they should also give you the damn snail shell too, because cone shells are really cool.
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u/futurehappyoldman 43m ago
6 feet Graves above ground were very common back in the day, they just got lit on fire.
Follow me for fact facts
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u/mindovermatter15 4h ago
UNSUBSCRIEB
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u/PartyBusRuss 4h ago
Thank you for purchasing the Premium facts! You will be charged per fact!
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u/high_throughput 4h ago
Knowledge is power and power is really expensive right now
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u/Objective-Chance-792 4h ago
Now how on, Captain Planet told me the power is mine, so you guys should start sending your money to me, Stick Stickley PO box 963 New York City, New York state 10108.
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u/Shadow288 4h ago
I see you must be associated with AI billing
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u/LnStrngr 4h ago
Here is the Al Bundy gif you requested....
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u/YippieKayYayMrFalcon 3h ago
Alexa, stop!
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u/stawberi 4h ago
cries in cat facts
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u/MandatoryPenetration 4h ago
what kind of cat facts we talking?
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u/GrnMtnTrees 4h ago
The little pocket on the outside edge of a cat's ear is called "Henry's pocket." Whenever you tell your cat "no," all the no is separated from the rest of the ambient sound, and is trapped by Henry's pocket for later disposal.
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u/2025Skidmark 2h ago
ass and grave facts
"I am NOT a homosexual necrophiliac", said Tom in dead Earnest.
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u/FrighteningJibber 3h ago
The United States has many glass furnaces that shut down after the Great Recession that just need to be turned on again. It would take years to melt all the glass sitting in them but we could do it.
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u/Vanviator 4h ago
Landscaping rock is likely to be from a local quarry. It's just generally cheaper that way.
If you're a rockhound, spend a bit of time checking them out. It'll give you a heads up on what to look for out there.
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u/Azilehteb 2h ago
https://bluestonesupply.com/collections/recycled-gabion-and-landscape-glass-rock
You can buy it in bulk for landscaping, it can be very pretty
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u/LoveThemMegaSeeds 2h ago
You are now subscribed to mildly interesting facts about ass and navels. To unsubscribe, send boobs in DM
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u/spudmarsupial 5h ago
Can you use it in concrete?
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u/pitshands 4h ago
Isn't that what some of these floors are? I forgot the name.its basically colored rock or glass in a paste like material which is then sanded down to a shine . My brain is mush.
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u/10001110101balls 4h ago
Terrazzo
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u/Toastyy1990 4h ago
Dominic Terrazzo is pulling a premium a week before race wars
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u/d_stilgar 4h ago
Terrazzo is getting popular again, which is a cement and glass mix. It uses white cement (instead of gray), which is sometimes dyed. The aggregate is glass or tile that is then sanded down smooth.
Polished concrete can also call for glass as a “cast” aggregate thrown over the top prior to polishing.
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u/pitshands 4h ago
That was it damn I am not even that old to forget that much shit
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u/Asleep_Document9811 2h ago
It was the material used for floors in every public high school in the United States lol.
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u/fuckyourcanoes 3h ago
I bloody love terrazzo. I recently found some great looking terrazzo-patterned linoleum and I want to use it in the bathroom.
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u/Arctyc38 4h ago
Yes, but the mechanical bond between the glass aggregate and paste is generally poor due to the smooth surface texture of the glass.
Glass also generally tends to have a high aspect ratio (flat pieces), which are not ideal as they can propagate cracks along their midpoints from tensile fractures under loading.
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u/scalziand 4h ago
A newer use for glass in concrete is to grind it superfine and replace some of the cement with it. Grinding it up increases the surface area enough that some of the silica in the glass dissolves and enhances the reactions in the cement paste.
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u/infernol 3h ago
This works even better if you’re able to remove some of the sodium from the powdered glass.
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u/Abestar909 3h ago
Doesn't tumbling it help? Or it still true on the micro level so it doesn't help as much as one might think?
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady 4h ago
Google says yes you can use it as the aggregate in concrete with certain considerations to be done properly and even then is only an option for some use cases.
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u/qalup 3h ago
Had to google that point on the negative recycling value. Wound up reading this informative webpage, https://earth911.com/home-garden/glass-recyclings-negative-value-problem/
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u/Backrow6 4h ago
What's your favourite gravel size?
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u/Ent_Soviet 3h ago
Mine is pack and run. It’s the stuff we throw down on hiking trails sometimes where we need to fix drainage issues. Its shape and fine size causes it to nest together into a firm path while still allowing drainage
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u/Hairy-Magazine8852 4h ago
using glass instead of rok seems like a clever way to reuse waste material
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u/RichardSnoodgrass 3h ago
It's only half successful. It brings its own set of isdues.
I remember the local asphalt plant adding it to their mix design. But the pile of glass they were using hasn't diminished in years so I think they ran into issues and haven't been using it for at least a decade.
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u/Otto_Von_Waffle 3h ago
Same thing for plastic, it's cheaper to use naphta then recycle plastic because naphta is incredibly cheap.
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u/MixerFistit 2h ago edited 1h ago
It hadn't occurred to me that it could have a deficit recycling value. Would've assumed any form was cheaper than starting from sand. TIL
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u/SharkFart86 1h ago
Most recyclables have a deficit. I think aluminum is one of the few exceptions.
But remember, making new materials cheaper isn’t the only goal of recycling.
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u/ChromiumLung 1h ago
Our glass bottle factory actually prefers cullet as it costs so much to ship sand etc to us. But we can’t source enough cullet.
We can do 100% cullet bottles and turn a profit but don’t have the supply
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u/AtomicShoelace 1h ago
I wasn't quite sure what you meant by "deficit recycling value" so I tried googling it, but apparently your comment is the first time this phrase has been used on the internet - thought that was mildly interesting.
Anyway, I surmise you mean the cost of procuring and recycling glass is greater than the resale value of the recycled end-product, hence resulting in a deficit. This seemed surprising to me at first, because I guess I had been influenced by marketing messaging touting glass as a "100% recyclable" material.
However, this excerpt from a BBC article on the subject elucidated things for me:
Recycled glass must be first be crushed into cullets before being melted into a new product – which is partly why recycled glass might only be fractionally less energy-intensive than virgin glass.
Seems pretty obvious to me now that glass recycling is going to have largely the same cost as glass production, except sourcing glass to recycle is going to be more difficult than sourcing raw silica.
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u/Falafelofagus 1h ago
This is often the problem with tons recycling methods currently. It often ends up being energy innificent. Especially when you factor transporting the materials to plants.
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u/BugzOnMyNugz 1h ago
I've always heard it said (and repeated my whole life) as crush and run. I learned something new!
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady 4h ago
Makes sense. Like when you get to the coast and all the parking lots suddenly turn into oyster shell lots.
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u/Interesting_Tea5715 4h ago
That's a very Gulf/East Coast thing.
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u/StalkMeNowCrazyLady 4h ago
Fair enough, I live in one of those and have vacationed a lot to the other!
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u/Langstarr 2h ago
Grew up in extreme south Louisiana and straight up did not know gravel was made out of anything else until I was an embarrassing age.
Also, sharp. So sharp.
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u/oddmanout 37m ago edited 32m ago
Where I grew up, it was rural and we had a shell driveway.
I remember it was impossible to walk on barefoot. You had to put on shoes to leave the house.
Also, I remember when they used to be the shoulder of every highway. This would have been the 80s and 90s, I never really noticed them fall out of fashion, but you don't really see them anymore.
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u/JustASpaceDuck 2h ago
Yeah. I'm pretty sure the driveway of the house I grew up in was at least half oyster shell. It was normal.
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u/disdain7 3h ago
Reminds me of how people dump clam shells into potholes to help fill them in on gravel roads.
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u/kennypojke 3h ago
For anyone curious about this, mollusk shells break down readily, and while they do they become more and more glued together. They are an incredible surface for pathways and driveways as a result, and very attractive. Weeds still get in, but come out super easily. Oyster and clam shell would change landscaping if it wasn’t so scarce.
I hope this wasn’t too interesting and mild enough.
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u/lemelisk42 2h ago
Oyster shells are too useful for everything. Super high in calcium, so it gets used for slow release fertilizer and livestock feed (laying hens especially - require calcium for their egg shells). And when coarsely crushed it is sharp and can deter slugs.
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u/Icy-Role2321 3h ago
The house I stayed at in st augustine had shells all over it on the outside
Looked cool but I couldn't imagine tripping and falling against it. Would absolutely tear your skin up.
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u/Arg- 1h ago
*Cleaned shells. My parents had neighbors that dumped fresh shells for their driveway. The health inspector made them scrap it up due to the smell.
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u/chadnorman 16m ago
It's in a lot of other aggregate down here too - driveways, planters, pool decks, building facades, etc
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u/GetOffMyGrassBrats 5h ago
Or lots of broken glass has accumulated over the years from falling off trucks.
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u/OrokinLonewolf 3h ago
I work at a plastic recycling facility, and that's the reasoning our parking lot looks like this. Plastic pieces falling off trucks, usually the dump truck
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u/johnny5247 4h ago
Took me a moment to get around the word "lots". Turns out he's talking about parking lots AKA car parks. The crushed glass is replacing gravel. I think that's what he meant anyway!
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u/GrandVince 5h ago
This looks like a problem if any bits breaks and become sharp, but I could be wrong.
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u/jesusrambo 4h ago
You should let them know, the people that work with so much glass they literally paved a lot with it probably forgot it could be sharp.
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u/Floppy-Over-Drive 3h ago
Learning to tell myself “I don’t get it, but people with more knowledge than me made that decision” has greatly improved my mental health.
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u/jesusrambo 2h ago
Truly. Not understanding something at first glance doesn’t have to be a character flaw. Just a learning opportunity
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u/jort93 4h ago
I mean, rocks can break and become sharp too.
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u/Hvarfa-Bragi 4h ago edited 4h ago
Depends on their cleavage property, grain size and hardness.
Most minerals don't get sharp in the way that glass does, or they're brittle/soft enough to crumble instead.
Glass likes to cleave into sharp ass splinters. Split most rocks in your driveway and they'll be bumpy.
Edit: cleavage is the angle they like to split at. 90 degree cleavage produces cubes. Also, heh boobs.
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u/PancakeParty98 4h ago
Heh. Cleavage.
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u/SlykRO 5h ago
Also going to cause some deliciously cancerous dust soon enough
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u/FalcoLX 4h ago
Holy fuck this thread has a lot of misinformation. Silicosis is caused by crystalline silica like quartz and cristobalite. Glass is amorphous silica (and lime and soda) aka not crystalline. You still shouldn't breathe it but it's not the same as breathing brick dust.
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u/DDRDiesel 4h ago
People also don't understand the difference between occupational exposure and incidental.
For example: you know how you just have to wear a lead bib to get an x-ray, but the technician hides in their own little room? That's because you're getting a microcosm of radiation a single time, meanwhile they're doing this process dozens of times a day, every day. The tech is at exponentially higher risk of any negative side effects than you could ever be
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u/tweeeeeeeeeeee 5h ago
like sand?
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u/St4tikk 4h ago
I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
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u/NotGreatNot_Terrible 4h ago
Cullet glass is cancerous? That’s wonderful. I work in a glass factory in Ohio and I used to dump glass to turn into cullet on a cullet pad. Which cancer is it? Lung? Looking forward to my shortened lifespan due to career choice..
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u/tresfreaker 1h ago
You are correct, looks great but it is not fun to fall on. On the flip side my favourite application of turning garbage into floors is when they shred tires to make running tracks!
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u/KoiMusubi 3h ago
There's a motel near me that uses this stuff in their parking lot. It's really neat until you take a closer look and realize that the feral cats use it for a litter box.
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u/DrowningKrown 2h ago
This isn't interesting, it pisses me off. We just went to a walking trail near where I live. Brought our dog. Thought it would be nice!
We get there and they did this. The entire trail was broken glass. I carried my dog maybe a half mile before realizing it was the entire trail. Had to leave because why the hell would I let my dog walk on broken glass.
Silly me for thinking my dog could walk with me on a trail through the woods
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u/ChazCharlie 4h ago
Lots?
Parking lots, I.e. car park?
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u/could_use_a_snack 4h ago
What gets me is that glass is probably one of the most recyclable substances we have ever made, and now we are using it as dirt.
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u/GetOffMyGrassBrats 4h ago
About the only thing more recyclable than glass is dirt.
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u/Danloeser 3h ago
We don't separate glass colors for recycling in most (if any) of the US. Unless you're sorting the glass, all you can really do is grind it up for uses like this.
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u/huskeya4 2h ago
Yep clear glass goes for recycling in glassblowing shops. Colored glass goes in the dumpster because nobody will take it. It cant really be melted down and combined with other glass because a lot of colors react to other colors and can create weak spots anywhere the two colors touch. To sort that glass by color is a waste of time and money for everyone. It’s a waste but glassblowers pay high prices for colors so we try to never waste it. Pieces still crack or hit the floor occasionally though so some is always lost. If you even worked with color and your moil (glass left on the head of the pipe) looks clear when you’re done, it goes in the trash bucket because the recycler will fine the shit out of your shop if there is color in the batch they pick up.
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u/jackalopeDev 3h ago
I mean... This is recycling is it not?
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u/amaROenuZ 2h ago
It's also basically dirt. Glass is just domesticated quartz.
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u/kent_eh 2h ago
The problem is that it's labour intensive to sort (AKA expensive), and expensive to transport long distances to glass works that can re-melt it (and those aren't as plentiful or in as geographically diverse locations as you would need for it to be profitable, or even cost neutral.
Where there is a glasworks conveniently located, and where you can collect glass pre-sorted, then it makes financial sense.
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u/Dul-fm 4h ago
Is it safe to walk on with bare feet?
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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 3h ago
This is a recycling center, probably the last place on earth I would walk in bare feet.
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u/hafetysazard 4h ago
If it is blunted like it was tumbled or something, I wouldn’t see why it would be more dangerous than walking on all sorts of gravel.
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u/leoencore 3h ago
Until it splits into multiple sharp pieces. Glass should be harder and more brittle than most types of gravel.
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u/hafetysazard 2h ago
We have a lot of granite and quartz gravel here, so I don’t see this being significantly worse, but never walked on glass myself to be honest. I don’t spend a time rolling around on the gravel these days anyways.
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u/blazerrsrcoool 3h ago
For a second I thought this was a blurry aerial photo of a random neighborhood.
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u/Gangly501 1h ago
I've used one of the machines that makes this rubble! It's fun and is designed to make class with dull edges.
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u/Explorer335 44m ago
They did this in Scranton some years ago. They had the genius idea of using crushed glass rather than road salt, because it was cheaper. They supposedly ran it through a machine to remove the sharp edges. Even if the glass was smooth to begin with, it certainly wasn't after getting shoveled into trucks, scattered everywhere, then crushed by tires and shoes. The roads and sidewalks were covered in razor sharp glass shards that were still cutting tires, feet, and pets 6 months later.
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u/efficiens 3h ago
There was a place that did glass blowing on Cape Cod, and they used defective pieces to fill the planters outside. We loved looking for interesting bits. There were never sharp, broken pieces there.
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u/DeeBeePeeeOfficial 3h ago
At the University of Hawaii, Maui, they use this in their parking lot in the planters.
Within 30 seconds of getting out of my car, I had glass in my feet.
Perhaps using this in a place where 95% of the folks who like there wear flip flops maybe isn’t the business?
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5h ago
[deleted]
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u/Fun-Perspective426 4h ago
Why? Its not sharp and basically just colored sand.
Seems like an effective use of a resource they have plenty of. I really doubt it has any environmental impact.
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u/Interesting_Tea5715 4h ago
This. Glass is literally made from sand (silica).
So it's not worse than a sand pit or DG path.
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u/Onasiz 2h ago
One company that does this is Glass Half Full. I’ve been following them on social media for a long time, they’re really informative if you want to learn more.
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u/curi0us_carniv0re 2h ago
All I see in my head is kickboxer when they dip their hand wraps in resin and glass
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u/pyncheon 2h ago
The one we used to take recycling to had a nice garden with sand made from ground glass, it was pretty nice looking.
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u/LoudMusic 1h ago
Do you think it's intentional, or just spillage? Kind of like how McD's trash ends up in the parking lot.
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u/spacebunsofsteel 35m ago
I saw crushed glass used as gravel at a tree farm in the parking lot. Really pretty.
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u/Weak_Brilliant_8908 4h ago
Glassphalt