Glass Fact File

Because glass can be downcycled it avoids being thrown into the landfill, which makes container glass a really valuable environmentally friendly packaging material. The downcycle refers to something that can be recycled into something of a lesser quality. For a glass manufacturer, the use of cullet (recycled glass) is of an extreme benefit. Cullet is the term that the industry uses to identify crushed glass and is a really critical secondary raw material. As well as the savings in raw material use, about 2.5 – 3% of energy is saved for every 10% of cullet used instead of raw materials, as no ‘reaction energy’ is needed to melt cullet. London Glazing are green glass suppliers. More than 67% of all glass in the form of bottles and jars in the EU are taken for recycling. This is the equivalent to 25 billion jars and bottles or 11 million tons being collected around europe. Glass itself is 100% recyclable and can be reused an for ever in a closed loop system. A recycling closed loop means a material can be used over and over again in a closed loop system like for glass bottles. This avoids downcycling, landfill or incineration. The waste experts in the EU, think that recycling is the best environmental option over energy recovery and landfill. London Glaziers recycle all glass.

Straight From Nature.
Glass comes from natural, sustainable and very abundant materials like sand, soda ash and limestone.  Glass is not made from scarce resources such as oil, and therefore it helps to prevent the exploitation of fossil fuels. The glass production actual needs energy to melt the raw materials and also the recycled glass but this energy is not obtained from fossil fuels such as oil.  Glass can be made with practically any energy source. The use of fossil fuel is actually very recent in the more than 2500 years of glassmaking. Wherever possible, the part of fossil CO2 emissions arising from burning fossil fuels to melt glass could be greatly reduced by switching to renewable or low carbon energy sources.

These days, the flat type of glass comes in many different specific forms developed for different products and applications. Flat glass that is made by the float process is treated again to give it specific qualities. Because of this, the industry ia able meet the various demands and needs of the construction, auto and solar energy industries. London Glaziers know all glass types.

Toughened Glass.
This glass is treated so it is far more resistant to breaks than just annealed glass so it will break in a more controlled way, providing a massive safety advantage in almost all of its uses. To make tough glass a sheet of annealed glass is heated to above 600°C, its surfaces are then quickly cooled while the inside of the glass remains hotter. London Glazing deals with tough glass.

The difference in cooling rates between the two parts of the glass produces different physical properties. This provides the glass with a mechanical resistance to breakage, and also, when it does break, will cause it to produce small, regular, typically square fragments rather than long, dangerous shards. Toughened glass also has an larger resistance to breakage because of the stresses caused by different temperatures in a pane. Car windscreens, glass portions of building facades, glass sliding doors and partitions in houses and offices, glass furniture like table tops, and more, typically use toughened glass. Products made from toughened glass often also include other technologies, particularly in the building and automotive and transport sectors.

Annealed Glass.
This glass is a basic flat glass that is the result of the float process. It is a common type of glass that breaks into large shards. It is used in some end products and quite often in double-glazed windows. It is also the material used to produce more advanced products through further treatments such as laminating, toughening, coating, etc. 

These days, modern windows are being made with three panes of glass, which we all know now triple glazing. These triple glazed windows are even more energy saving than modern double glazing. The heat insulation benefit is clearly felt through the additional pane of glass and gas filled gap. There are three reasons why you should think about fitting triple glazed windows. London Glaziers supply the latest glass.

1). They use much less energy and save even more on heating bills, and triple they also have an optimised energy balance to help make maximuum savings. This type of glazing gives a high level of solar heat gain, catching warmth from natural daylight and bringing it into your home. This is combined with high thermal insulation properties with triple glazed windows having a very low U-value to keep the heat in during night and day. The result is a window that well exceeds the current maximum “A” window energy rating achieving the maximum A+.
2). Comfort factor, means that the thermal efficient triple glazed windows guarantees that cold spots are gone. Triple glazed windows can also be configuered to give top class thermal acoustic performance, that reduces the noise levels from outside. London Glazing can advise on energy efficiency.
3). Increased security, as the extra pane of glass in triple glazing gives greater security for any home.

This type of glazing is now well established in many parts of Europe and is becoming increasingly the choice in the UK. The windows is one of the most exposed parts of any house. According to the Energy Saving Trust, a quite substantial 26% of all domestic heat will escape through the windows. Fitting energy saving windows is essential to help keep the cost of energy bills down. If fitting double glazing makes a modern house more comfortable to live in, triple glazing will make it even better.

Note: (Passivhaus) is a completely voluntary building performance standard that any person embarking on the build of a low-energy home may well be interested. Of German origin, it has had lots of attention in the UK and works on the principle of the reduction of heating demand to a really low level rather than just being reliant on renewables.
There are divided opinions. Triple glazing has been used in cold climate countries like Sweden and Norway for a long time, and the ultra-low energy (Passivhaus) insitute requires triple glazed windows with a U value of no more than 0.8. To have a window with this kind of low value, you will not only need to switch to triple glazing but also insulate the frame as well, also use more expensive manufacturing techniques, krypton gas can be used, in place of argon. A U-value of 0.8 sounds really good, so the additional energy we save is minute whilst the payback time for triple glazing is high compared to other energy-efficiency improvements. But no more than this. The real benefits are to do with comfort. If your walls, roof and floor of a house, are insulated and you forget the glass, you will definitely have cold spots around the windows at nightime. This causes draughts, and takes heat away from you if you sit close, and result in bad condensation. So, the point is, the standard of glass needs to be the same as the standard of the insulation in the house, so that the warm blanket around the house performs all the time and everytime.
A single glazed window, has an internal surface temperature of around 1°C.
A double glazed window, has a surface temperature of around 11°C.
A modern, energy-efficient double glazed window, has a surface temperature of 16°C.
A triple glazed window, with a centre-pane U-value of just 0.65, has a temperature of 18°C. 

Therefore you can now appreciate that a double glazed window is totally adequate, a triple glazed window happens to make you a lot more comfortable, as it keeps the heat a lot better. Triple glazing will not drastically affect your heating bills, but you will definately see and feel the difference inside your home.

The first type of mirror was seen over two hundred years ago in Germany. It was German chemist Justus von Liebig In 1835, who invented a process for placing a thin layer of metallic silver onto one side of a pane of clear flat glass. The technique was soonfine tuned, which then allowed for the mass production of the mirror. London Glazing supply mirrored glass. The modern mirrors we use today may have started in the 19th century, but mirrors themselves have actually been around for much longer. After a review in 2006 by vision scientist Dr. Jay Enoch that featured in the journal Optometry and Vision Science, the first mirrors were made by people in Turkey from ground and polished obsidian (volcano glass) around 8,000 years ago. Mirrors have been discovered in what is now Iraq and Egypt that were made of polished copper and date from 3000-4000 B.C. Approximately 1000 years after, the people in Central and South America began to make mirrors from polished stone, while Chinese and Indian mirror crafters made them from bronze. London Glaziers use flat glass. Pliny the Elder, the Roman author from the first century A.D. mentions to the first recorded use of glass mirrors in his encyclopedia Natural History. However, the mirrors never really came into widespread use at the time. Many different cultures independently created reflective mirrors at various periods throughout history, but maybe nature should be hailed as the true pioneer of the looking glass. The very first mirrors most probably were still water pools and rock or clay containers full of water, wrote. Of course, these natural mirrors pale in comparison to the mass produced mirrors made today. Not every person in the world has lauded the introduction of mirrors. An anthropologist in the 1970s took mirrors to the isolated Biami people of Papua New Guinea, the tribe reportedly met their reflections with horror, rather than amazement.

100% Recyclable Glass (Forever).
In excess of 67% of all glass in the form of bottles and jars in the EU are taken for recycling. This is the equivalent to 25 billion jars and bottles or 11 million tons being collected around europe. It is interesting to know that over 80% of these are actually recycled by glassmakers in europe to make new bottles and jars. Glass itself is 100% recyclable and can be reused an for ever in a closed loop system. A recycling closed loop means a material can be used over and over again in a closed loop system like for glass bottles. This avoids downcycling, landfill or incineration and it is therefore key to a green and efficient Europe. The EU’s waste experts, after prevention and reuse, think that recycling is the best environmental option over energy recovery and landfill. London Glazing recycle all glass.

Nature.
Glass comes from natural, sustainable and very abundant materials like sand, soda ash and limestone.  Glass is not made from scarce resources such as oil, and therefore it helps to prevent the exploitation of fossil fuels. The glass production actual needs energy to melt the raw materials and also the recycled glass but this energy is not obtained from fossil fuels such as oil.  Glass can be made with practically any energy source. The use of fossil fuel is actually very recent in the more than 2500 years of glassmaking. Wherever possible, the part of fossil CO2 emissions arising from burning fossil fuels to melt glass could be greatly reduced by switching to renewable or low carbon energy sources. London Glaziers are professionals with glass.

No Problem For Landfill.
There is no need for glass to go into any landfill site or even be incinerated because glass can be recycled 100%. This attribute gives glass the real chance to become a zero waste packaging material. However, even if it does happen to end up in landfill, the used glass bottles and jars are what is called inert and are a non-hazardous waste material. Container Glass under EU law [1] is considered inert and this means it is without risk of contaminating the environment. Also glass will not be found polluting the worlds seas.

During the 4th and and 5th centuries AD, the Roman glassmakers were definately in a class by themselves. Glassmaking and glassworking were separate vocations. The glassmakers would use a tank furnace to melt many tons of raw materials in one hit, and glass workers used many techniques to manufacture objects from simple household utensils to luxury objects. Cage glasss are some of the Romans’ most remarkable glass creations. An undecorated “blank” with a really thick wall was given to a cold worker, who used cutting wheels and hand tools to take away two-thirds of the glass, that left an open “cage” that enclosed the container. The metal attachments show that this cage glass was a lamp that was to be suspended. The bowl contained some oil and a wick, sometimes floating on a piece of cork. Think about the patterns of light and shade that were cast by the flame as it shone into the cage. London Glaziers are familier with older glass.

The Migration Period.
The fifth and sixth centuries are also known as the “Migration Period,” as people from outside the Roman Empire moved into the former Roman provinces and built small, independent kingdoms. In a lot of these groups, it was customary to bury the dead with personal possessions. London Glazing supply high quality glass. This, including glass provided 18th and 19th century antiquarians with the raw material for the study of early medieval culture. This study of medieval glass is pretty much the study of drinking vessels. Though most of the best examples of these vessels have been recovered from graves, the prescence of fragments of exactly the same glass in settlements shows that the objects buried with the dead were the same as those used by the people still living. Some of the earliest glasses are similar to those produced in late Roman times.

Many art historians have overlooked the excellence of glass in Islamic art. There were thousands of glass makers who annonymously passed on their skills from generation to generation, they experimented with many different colours, techniques and shapes. They also created many intricate surface decorations on this beautiful material. London Glazing appreciate glass and its uses. Their work still exists in private and public collections all over the world which is a great tribute to the skill of these dedicated craftsmen.

The History.
Following the demise of the Roman Empire in 476, the political turbulance in the western Roman Empire had a real adverse affect on the regional economic stability, that contributed to a decline in the making of glass. The Byzantine Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, however continued to make their glass.With the rise of Islam, and the expansion of Muslim territories throughout the 7th century A.D., created the society that kept alive many of the successes that were lost in the west. London Glaziers are familiar with stained glass. Glass with mosaic designs, cast and mold blown items continued to be made, and beginning in the ninth century, a new decorative approach to glass was taken. The initial advance began as they found that glass could be coloured with metallic stain. This was the first type of item that we now call lustre ware, as this process gave it a unique sheen. In other words, stained glass. During the 10th and 11th centuries, the cast and cut routines carried out on glass attained an even higher level of achievements. The 12th to the 14th centuries, saw gilded and enameled vessels take on a never before seen brilliance. The artists working with this glass glass would create very imaginative and highly schematic scenes featuring animals, geometric patterns, and calligraphic script that they coloured in bright enamels. With the opening of trade and political alliances, these new ways of ornamenting glass that was innovated in the Islamic world found their way to the west, and thus gave european glassmaking a renewed lease of life.

Many thoeries exist regarding the invention of glasses, according to some sources the first wearable pair of eyeglasses were made in the 13th century in Italy. London Glazing tradesmen know all about glass products. A man called Salvino D’Armate more than likely invented eyeglasses in around 1285, though various sources suggest an earlier date. Both he and an Italian monk called Allesandro della Spina (made it public knowledge) shared the innovation and is often thought of as the inventor of eyeglasses. These early eyeglasses had metal or bone frames made of metal with lenses made from quartz as the ”opticians” of that time didn’t have the means of producing flawless lenses in glass. The 14th century, saw Venetian craftsmen making what were called “disks for the eyes”‘. The name lens came from the Italians as they look similar to lentil beans. The first lenses were convex, that bulged out in the centre, and they were used to correct far sighted conditions. By 1451, German Nicholas of Cusa made these eyeglasses to help people who were near-sighted with concave lenses that were thin at the centre and thick at the edges. London Glaziers are glass experts. Early eyeglasses had glass lenses set into heavy wooden frames, lead or even copper. The modern eyeglass frame, that sat over the ears and nose, was pioneered in 1727 by British optician Mr Edward Scarlett. American scientist and famous philosopher Benjamin Franklin was given the credit for the invention of bifocals, dividing his lenses for far and near vision. Sir George Biddle Airy, an English astronomer and mathematician, invented glasses to correct astigmatism in 1827 which were meant to be held by hand. Later glasses were designed to be held in place by ribbon or by exerting pressure on the bridge of the nose, such as with pince-nez.
In 1955 the unbreakable lenses were invented and in 1971 a new lens was developed which mixed the properties of plastic and glass.

When the 17th century final arrived, the glass made in europe had become cheap enough for the ordinary non wealthy person to use it for, initially their windows. The glass panes didn’t only protect the people from the elements, but also made sure that lots of light was let into their homes, and the light, prompted a massive leap forward in their hygiene. London Glazing know the power of glass. This was because all of a sudden the vermin and dirt that was hidden by the dark was seen so they became clean and free of disease. This definitely contributed to the elinination of the plague in europe by early in the 18th century. The mid-19th century, the easy sterilisatuion of swan-necked glass flasks helped the French chemist Louis Pasteur disprove the theory that germs spontaneously generated from rotting matter. This was a revolution in the understanding of disease. Not too long after, the glass light bulb changed work and leisure completely and with the turn of the 20th century, new ways of laminating made glass tougher and safer than it everhad been up until then.

The Glass King (1368-1422).
France’s King Charles VI suffered from repeated hallucinations that his whole body was made of glass and tha in order to protect himself he needed to carry iron in his clothing. He was not surprisingly known as Charles the Mad and Charles the Well Beloved. London Glaziers supply all types of glass.

Very Clever Glass.
With the appearance of spectacles near the end of the 13th century, around 15 years of extra working time was added to the academic and scientific careers of those men whose work totally relied on reading books etc. It was the 17th century, when the philosopher Baruch Spinoza earned his living grindind lenses, which allowed him to practice his philosophy without private funding, but probably contributed to his early death from a lung illness in 1677. The glass mirror was believed to have been used by Filippo Brunelleschi in his experiments to understand the laws of perspective, which would have a huge impact on Renaissance painting. Microscopes and the telescopes, were invented at the end of the 16th century, and they opened up two new universes, the far away and the very close.

Glass is a basic material that is in products many that we see every day. It is used for windscreens and windows for cars and transport, windows for houses and buildings, as well as equipment like solar thermal panels and photovoltaic modules. It can be used, but in much smaller quantities, for lots of other applications like interior fittings and decoration, furniture, appliances and electronics. Below is some different types of flat glass:

Mirrored glass
To make mirrored glass, a metal coat is put to one side of the glass. The coat is generally silver, aluminium, gold or chrome. For basic mirrored glass, a fully reflective metal coat is applied and sealed using a protective layer. To produce “one-way” mirrors, a thinner metal coat is applied, with no additional elements.
Mirrored glass is very populare now in architecture, for practical reasons as well as for aesthetics.

Self Cleaning:
This style of glass is a true innovation because it features a photocatalytic covering that will react when it meets daylight and then will begin to break down any organic grime etc. on the glass. The second action of this glass is when it rains and the water hits the glass, it will just evenly covers instead of the formation of raindrops and runs of in one and this takes the dirt with it. It even dries very quickly also. There aren’t even any streaks left. London Glazing supply all types of glass.

Security Glass:
This type of glass offers real security whilst not scrimping on the warmth that it can retain. The glass is constructed of special reinforcing elements that are contained within the glass that will to all intents and purposes make it impossible to breach. The outer pane is made of two bonded pieces that feature an inner layer of film of plastic giving it strength. Should there be a break, then the glass shards just stick to the plastic and therefore do not pose a danger from flying glass with the plastic still maintaining it’s integrity. London Glaziers supply security glass for windows.

Wired Glass:
This type of glass is normally manufactured from something called float glass. The best example is fitted in a fire door as it contains wire to keep the glass from shattering if a fire happens. It has no real security value and is quiet and not really likely to injure anyone.