Here is an excerpt of a great rave by ‘MasterBlaster‘ from on contractortalk.com on the benefits of Crushed Glass Grit:
“…Crushed glass is by far the Greenest and safest of all blast media’s available today.
Crushed glass has a super small carbon footprint….. because it’s made from 100% post consumable products as in “recycled glass”…. this is same stuff you put out at curbside for recycling pickup…. and in most cases recycled glass is produced, recycled and packaged within 50 miles of where it’s being used….while other products like olivine, garnet and star-blast have to be mined, processed and shipped hundreds and or thousands of miles to get it to market and in those cases use valuable fossil fuels to get it to market… “recycled glass is the GREENEST and CLEANEST product available today and uses very little fossil fuel to produce.”
Crushed glass is also considered the waste product of the glass recycling industry…. again when they recycle glass they recycle it for the larger pieces which are separated by color (Which saves energy… because when you start with COLORED GLASS to produce COLORED CLASS it saves a lot more energy and fossil fuel) also the crushed glass we use can’t be separated by color so it’s the waste product and before we used it for media blasting it use to go directly to the landfill… (So by use using it for media blasting they found another use for it and YET ANOTHER USE FOR THIS RECYCLED PRODUCT as in media blasting…. AGAIN THE GREENIES LOVE IT AND EAT IT UP.
As far dust goes… recycled glass produces a lot less dust especially if you’re doing wet abrasive blasting… and while it’s always a good practice to do containment on all you job to prevent your media from getting on the ground…. the one thing to keep in mind is recycled glass 100% inert so what gets on the ground is relatively safe and isn’t considered a contaminate like Black Beauty, Soda and or steel shot… it doesn’t change color or contaminate the ground, it doesn’t kill plants or wildlife and it blends into the ground like granular dirt… not that I’m saying it’s ok to leave any waste behind, but yes it blends in well…”
The full post and the related string can be found on contractortalk.com.