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| New twist in tale of glass Sand has been an essential ingredient in glass-making for hundreds of years, but in a new twist students at The University of Auckland are turning glass bottles back into sand for commercial use. Three fourth-year engineering students - Jeff Mison, Angela Lee and Joshua Wong - will help Waiheke Island residents with their waste disposal problems as well as eventually provide a new commercial product for sale, by recycling their glass bottles into sand. They are working with the Waiheke Waste Resource Trust, which originally wanted the students to investigate ways of reducing the cost of shipping bottles back to the mainland. As well as eliminating this cost, the sand the team will produce has a host of commercial applications from use in certain types of cement, mortar and plaster, to asphalt and sports turfs. This project is part of a new community service initiative to be formally launched today at The University of Auckland's Faculty of Engineering. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Construction News :: home page |