In the ancient period, the African bead work was done with some very valuable metals, like gold and copper. Some natural materials were also used for this bead work. But, in the recent period of time, abundance quantity of plastics and glass are used for this purpose. As a result, the ancient glorious touch of bead working has been lost from the African bead work. The intrinsic touch and original beauty can be retrieved only through the metallic beads. To abate this problem, Mintek of South Africa developed a new process. In this process, recycled glass bottles were utilized to manufacture glass beads. This manufacturing process followed the indigenous methods.

The beads, which were manufactured by using this process are known a African Glass Beads. In the new process, the used glass bottles are crushed and grown to powder form. This powder form is then added with a binder to make this adhesive and desired colorant. The beads are formed from the powder glass mixture and these beads are kept on stainless steel wires and sintered in a kiln. The temperature is provided around 800° C. after passing through such high temperature, the beads come out in both clear and opaque form. In Ghana, clay mold was used for casting glass beads into providing shape. In the mould, molten glass was poured, which had circular bead-shaped abjections. This poured molten glass sticked to make the chasms.

Process
One type of powder beads in the ancient period of Africa is known as Akoso. From when these beads were started to manufacture, is not clear. One assumption is that these beads had been started to make in between of late 18th century and early of the 19th century. The glass was grounded and from the ground powder of glass, the Akoso beads were manufactured. After grounding the glass powder, the powder was placed in a clay mold and until and unless the powder did not fused into solid glass, this powder was fired in the open air ovens.

In Africa, still today, these beads have an esteemed place in the mind of the African people. These beads are used in any specific celebrations, funerals and these beads are buried with the death under the grave. But, the matter of concern is that, today these beads are becoming reared and rearer to find in the market. Today, most of the Akoso beads are available in the market in the form of private possession. Other type of African beads are called as Bodom. These beads are powder glass having worked designs beads. These beads are made in Ghana. It is believed that these beads were started to manufacture from late 18th century. The normal size of the diameters of these beads lies in between of 10 mm to 13 mm and the strand of these beads is 43 inches long.