There's a glass shortage, but not for greenhouse glass

As you might have read in some newspapers, there's a glass shortage which is slowing down building construction. It's a result the recession which hit the US eight years ago; the construction industry ground to a halt—and with it, the suppliers of building materials like glass. Now, boom-time architects and developers have a problem: There isn’t enough glass to go around.

A fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal gives a very vivid look at the long arm of the recession. When thousands of building projects were scrapped after 2008, 11 glass factories shut down (out of less than 50 that exist in the US) because there weren’t enough skyscrapers and condos to buy up the supply of this high-cost material. Nowadays, as construction in the US is reaching fever pitch, the remaining glass factories literally can’t make glass fast enough—leading to some projects sitting nearly finished, sans facades, for months awaiting their skins.

But what does this mean for the greenhouse industry? We received several questions about it. Is there still enough glass available for all those greenhouse projects that are being built around the globe? We asked a greenhouse manufacturer about it. A spokesperson said that the glass crisis is not affecting the greenhouse industry as most of the glasshouse projects are using diffused glass nowadays. "Eighty percent of the newly built greenhouses are made from diffused glass. This glass is produced in China and Germany, and these factories are luckily not affected by the crisis."

So no worries, there is enough glass available for greenhouse growers in the coming years.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Qizmodo