Glass Iridescent

Recycled Glass Tile – Add Beauty To Any Kitchen Backsplash

There has been a huge effort for communities to establish and promote recycling programs to help keep some of the glass out of the landfills. Most glass recycling is used in products that are not seen from the naked eye. For example recycled glass is used in asphalt for roadways, insulation for your home, backfill for construction projects and even in some reflective paint.

Bathroom and kitchen designs are often the focal points of today’s homes. Fixtures, colors, style and lighting are all elements often used in these spaces. For homeowners hoping to incorporate a unique design while being environment friendly, recycled glass can provide that to them.

The up and coming area for the use of glass is in recycled glass tiles. Most companies who are producing recycled glass tiles are using anywhere from 30% up to 100% post consumer waste of glass.

Recycled glass tiles are produced by melting down waste glass or unusable glass in a heated furnace in which the temperature will exceed over 2000 F. The molten glass is then stamped or poured into their appropriate mold, hand trimmed and even ground down to its form. The beauty of the recycled glass is that the variations in each tile is what gives it the their distinct characteristics.

Glass tiles can be used anywhere normal ceramic tiles would be installed. Recycled glass tiles have the benefit of being resistant to chemical and stains which makes it nice to be used in wet areas. Recycled Glass tiles can be used on floors, walls, backsplashes, countertops, tabletops and among other areas in your home.

The thing to remember about the recycled glass, is that about 80% of the glass tiles are transparent. This means when you are installing the glass tiles, make sure your background(area of installation) is painted white. When using your thinset(which you want to use white), you want to use a very small trowel for installation. This helps to eliminate the trowel marks that could be visible after the installation. The smaller the trowel the better. When using a smaller trowel, you press the glass tile mosaic it will flatten down the trowel and give it a smoother, cleaner look and install.

The color choices and available sizes for recycled glass tiles are growing every year. They even have solid, matte, iridescent, and clear colors available. Most common sizes available are 1″ x 1″ usually paper faced, and 1″ x 2″ paper faced as well. Keep in mind that there are companies that offer a much wider variety of sizes available. The thing to remember or consider about paper faced products is it does make it nicer for installation, however you do need to pay close attention to the product that you recieve. The most critical is taht of the iridescent colors. From the backside of the tile, you cannot tell if it is iridescent or not. To be safe I suggest peeling a couple of the glass tiles to make sure that you either have or do not have an iridescent glass tile, depending on what you order.

Using recycled glass tile in your home is a way to add color and beauty and also a way for you to help out our environment and keep some of the glass out of our landfills.

About the Author

Bruce Mendes has been in the retail trade business for 15 years specializing in flooring and cabinetry. He has a high end showroom in Central Ohio and a web presence at . If you have any questions or comments you can email him at

Material that mimics an LCD screen?

I am looking for a material/paper/plastic that mimics the sheen and color of an LCD screen (like that of a calculator, a cell phone, or an iPod for example). It in no way needs to actually be functional, just look spot on. If anyone has any suggestions, it would be great because I am stumped. I need it for an art project. I already thought about cannibalizing old LCD’s but they are actually layered beneath very thin sheets of glass and shatter too easily to work with. The LCD material in question here really only needs two qualities: that light grey/metallic color and the shimmering iridescent sheen, I can layer that underneath Plexiglas so that film portion of the LCD screen is not important, just the underlying material. Thanks in advance to anyone who has a suggestion.

Commercial model makers will often second surface decorate the acrylic. The digits would be printed or vinyl die cut(from SignsNow..etc) or PMT in reverse to appear right reading when viewed through the acrylic. For that metallic color, paint is often used directly on the acrylics underside. Try a hobby shop, avoid reustoleum from the hardware store.
Krylon is usually pretty good. You could also paint second surface a thin clear plastic, ask for the Evergreen plastics at a local hobby shop. You could try to find a prefinished material, none come to mind, but they are often used for in mold decorating for injection molding. I could take a look around my office to see if I can turn up a source….hope that helps…

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