Ceramics are a confusing issue. Are they like glass? Actually they aren’t, because they don’t melt. Are they organic, so they can be composted? No again! So they end up in garbage where their sharp corners are a danger, then in dumps, which is a waste and a shame.

A ceramic is most often made from clay that has been heated to where the particles partially melt together (sinter) and stick together into a rigid mass. The way to reuse a broken ceramic mass is thus obvious. Break the particles apart and return them to the clay that they were made from. This is best done by grinding the pieces in a mill, but second best would be simply breaking the large pieces into powder with a large hammer or a flat tamping tool. The powder may not be valuable, since it is just ordinary clay, but at least it can be distributed onto soil with no ill effect and it is not filling up dumps.

Some ceramics, known as refractories, usually found in high tech or research ceramics, may be made from valuable or rare oxides, or even highly refined aluminum oxides (claylike) rather than simple clay. Recapturing the powder may be economically worthwhile.

Using a personal hammer for smashing broken teapots or flowerpots is satisfying but is not a large scale solution for society. What we need is a dedicated grinding mill that takes in all of a population’s broken ceramics and puts them through a power mill. Then the amount of powder would be significant and could be reused for new ceramics. More research would be useful, since not all ceramics are the same and they often have glazes.