Vicasa Glass Factory

We were fortunate enough to visit a commercial glass factory known as Vicasa.  The factory itself is very big and quite impressive.  It is an offshoot of another glass factory which we will visit next week which does more artistic glasswork and includes a museum.  We were given a brief introduction to the glass making process, where the materials are obtained to make the glass and finally we were given a tour of the factory.  The glass is made of silica, sand and calcium carbonate and comes form the northwest of Spain.  They can not use the sand nearby because it contains iron which will give the glass a green tint when heated.  The process itself is really interesting and the machines they use are fascinating but unfortunately they prohibit photography so the photos are few.  They produce a wide variety of glass products including bottles for whisky DYC, light bulbs, fingernail polish bottles, cologne bottles and glass block used in construction to name a few.  The factory produces over 300,000 tons of glass a day.  They are very big on safety, which you can see from the photos.  They actually made us wear eyeglasses, ear plugs, walk on a blue path through the factory and they obtained steel toed work shoes for 2 people in our group who were wearing sandals! In the 50 years this branch has been opened the worst accident they have had on site was someone losing the tip of a finger.  That is not bad at all considering there is molten glass at up to1200 degrees Celsius being dropped 25 feet into steel molds to then be blown into bottles or some type of insulator used for phone poles and the high speed train.   They recycle 100% of the glass that breaks or is not up to their standards and they release 0% emissions into the atmosphere - only water vapor is emitted.  Impressive.  The visit itself was very interesting but there was one major downside: no photos inside!!!  However, there are some links I am including to the photos we were able to take and to some site specific information.  They include products they make (like cologne bottles) an aerial view of the factory and the molds for some of the glass.

http://www.vicasa.es/flash/historia_eng.swf

http://www.webdelagranja.com/sgd/fabrica_cronograma.php

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