The recycled glass market is expected to witness substantial growth by 2027 owing to implementation of favorable government regulations to strengthen the glass recycling industry.

Glass can be recycled into raw materials endlessly without loss in quality or purity. It effectively meets the growing market demand for new glass containers while also supporting the circular economy. The glass recycling process has several benefits, including lower melting temperature, low CO2 emissions, and lower energy consumption, all of which have boosted industry adoption in recent years.

Furthermore, industry players have been adopting strategic initiatives to monetize emerging trends in the market, thereby enhancing the global business scenario. For instance, in February 2021, Strategic Materials, Inc., a U.S.-based glass recycling company, launched its novel recycled glass filtration product, dubbed TruFiltration, which is a sustainable filtration media designed for residential and commercial filtration markets.

The recycled glass market has been segmented based on application, product type, and region. With respect to product type, the market has further been divided into glass powder, crushed glass, and cullets.

The glass powder sub-segment is projected to expand at around 5% CAGR through the estimated timeline owing to its increasing adoption as a substitute for fillers in the coming years. Glass powder, which is made by crushing waste glass, is widely used as an alternative to additives or fillers due to its favorable physical properties like reducing wear & tear, improving resistance to chemicals, increasing rigidity, controlling thermal expansion of the materials, and many more.

On the basis of application, the recycled glass market has been categorized into fillers, glass bottles & containers, abrasives, flat glass, highway beads, fiber glass, and others. The abrasives sub-segment is anticipated to grow at a slower pace, registering a CAGR of about 6.0% over the study period.

Recycled glass abrasive has several advantages, such as it is suspended silica-free, generates low landfill waste, produces dust that is truculent, and so forth. Glass abrasives find applications across various industry avenues viz., shipyards, pipelines, concrete restoration, and blasting industry, among others.

From the regional point of view, the Middle East & Africa recycled glass market is poised to expand at a CAGR of approximately 5% over the assessment period. The MEA recycled glass market is still in its nascent stage due to lack of segregation, awareness, low economical activities, lack of facility for glass recycling, and so on.

In 2018, the Middle East planned to build its first fully automatic glass recycling plant in Oman, the National Glass Recycling Co. (NGRC), with a capacity of 650 tons per day. Thus, the establishment of glass recycling plants in the region is slated to drive regional market growth over 2021-2027.