A glass bottle can take up to 1 million years to decompose.

Glass takes a very, very long time to break down. It can take a glass bottle more than a million years to decompose in the environment, possibly even more if it’s in a landfill. This means that glass manufactured and used 5000 years ago may still be present in the environment.

Because its life cycle is so long, and because glass doesn’t leach any chemicals, it’s better to repurpose and reuse it over and over again before recycling it.