Hello everyone. There is a Cooper OVH flat glass street light in my neighborhood and it is a little over a year old. But there is some dark red stuff forming around the glass lense. I’m not sure what it is, I don’t think that it is rust or corrosion since it is only a little over a year old. If anyone could let me know what that is I would greatly appreciate it, thanks.

It will be rust. It uses to appear really after very short time. To stain the glass, you need just very little of it...

Ok that helps so much I’ll try and take a picture in a few mins. I thought it was so strange because no other Cooper ovh flat glass in that neighborhood has that much rust on it. It started around mid right edge of the flat glass and worked its way around around the rest of the edge of the glass.

Here are some photos of it.

If tge glass is profiled, all stain uses to stay just on some sharper edge, so even when thicker, it is nearly unnoticeable because it blends with that edge. On a flat glass it just spreads, so form larger patch.
Unlike the glass, the plastics does not bind the rust, so it goes directly washed away, so no stains form, at least not that early (until the plastic surface gets corroded a bit). The glass is chemically "ready" to bond the iron oxides, so tye rust tends to adhere there.

What yses to be a factor is the air pollution: Very often the rust does not come fro the lantern material itself, but from the dust in the air...

Ok that really helps. I was so curious on to why it was doing that. Could there be some mildew and mold buildup too?

Plausible too... The thing is, the shaped refractors were mainly plastic, so materials where nothing really want to stick on (in order to glue them chemically, you need special glues and activators). These flat ones use to be glass an there quite a lot of things tend to adhere (nearly every glue stick on glass).

Plausible too... The thing is, the shaped refractors were mainly plastic, so materials where nothing really want to stick on (in order to glue them chemically, you need special glues and activators). These flat ones use to be glass an there quite a lot of things tend to adhere (nearly every glue stick on glass).

And do you know why it’s mainly just around the edges too? I think it’s because that’s where it comes in contact with the body of the light. I could be wrong.

It collects on the whole body, there it wont stick (the paint is just another plastic) and then flow with the humidity onto the glass from its edges.