Glass containers are made from sand, limestone, soda ash, cullet (crushed bottles) and various additives, including those used to color brown, green or blue bottles.

More than half of the bottles produced in the United States are brown. Clear (also known as flint) bottles are the next largest in production. Most of the remainder are green with a small amount of blue or other colors.

In 2009, approximately 26 billion glass containers were made in the United States. Slightly more than 80 percent were beverage containers, of which almost three quarters were beer bottles. The rest were mostly food containers. Another five billion bottles are imported. Most of these are green or brown wine and beer bottles.

Glass container use in the United States increased by 3.8 million tons between 1960 and 2008. However, the glass container market share of MSW declined in the same time period by 40 percent as lighterweight aluminum and plastic containers replaced glass bottles.

Other glass products such as window glass, fiberglass, and glassware use different manufacturing processes and different additives than container glass. This profile excludes non-container glass.

Chaz Miller is state programs director for the National Solid Wastes Management Association, Washington. E-mail him at: cmiller@envasns.org.

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