The Glass Recycling Coalition hosted a webinar highlighting the potential for increasing glass recycling, noting that 90% of Americans want to recycle glass, yet a shortage of glass beneficiation capacity exists. New Orleans has suspended curbside glass collection due to low participation, costing the city $60,000 annually, while other cities are following suit amidst low market value for recycled glass. The core issues remain low interest in recycling and the barriers in processing glass alongside other recyclables.

1. FUTURE TRENDS – RECYCLING – GLASS
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From Recycling Today website, “Glass Recycling Coalition hosts webinar - Webinar provided
MRF-based solutions to increase glass recycling”, December 14, 2016, Recycling Today Staff:
The Glass Recycling Coalition (GRC), Ann Arbor, Michigan, hosted a webinar titled "Making Glass
Recycling Work in MRFs" that attracted more than 150 local and state government
representatives…
According to the GRC, the key insights from the webinar include:
• Ninety percent of Americans say they want to recycle glass according to a 2016 national
poll by Survey USA.
• Glass cleaning systems in MRFs are capable of cleaning three-mix glass from 3/8 inches to
2 1/4 inches in size to provide better feedstock for further beneficiation.
• There is currently a shortage of glass beneficiation capacity throughout the country.
• MRFs that make a reasonable capital investment can create a sustainable business model
that includes glass.
• Significant market capacity exists to accept additional glass volumes.
• Using glass cullet in place of virgin materials reduces carbon emissions, energy
consumption and fusion loss in the bottle manufacturing and insulation manufacturing
industries.
The recurring message with all these recycling efforts is recycling reduces carbon emissions and
energy consumption. So what is the problem? From WasteDive.com website, By Cole Rosengren,
Jan. 3, 2017:
Dive Brief:
New Orleans will no longer offer curbside collection for glass after Jan. 12 due to low participation
rates. The program was costing the city about $60,000 per year, as reported by The New Orleans
Advocate.
While basic recycling collection was reestablished in 2011, after it was suspended following
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, glass collection didn't comeback until 2015. The service was only
offered in two neighborhoods, the French Quarter and Central Business District, and at one point
it was reported that only 1% of customers were participating.
The city's recycling drop-off center will now accept up to 20 pounds of glass per person during
limited hours on the second Saturday of each month…
Suspending glass collection is seen as a way to save money, and while adding the drop-off option
technically expands glass recycling access to all residents, the same low participation rate could
still continue. Some residents may not have the ability to bring their glass to this location once a
month and others may have fallen out of the habit after more than a decade of not recycling the
material.

2. FUTURE TRENDS – RECYCLING – GLASS
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Other cities such as Houston have also turned to drop-off centers over curbside collection as
glass continues to have a low value in many parts of the country. Some companies have found
ways to make glass profitable, and recyclers continue to offer new ideas, but curbside services
have been cutback in multiple areas. Knoxville recently suspended its curbside program and
Waste Connections announced that it has also done the same in other Tennessee municipalities.
Again what is the problem? There are two problems, low interest in recycling in general and glass
in particular and low value of the recycled glass. The trash, throw-way society is still going strong,
and not much will change until prices of everything starts rising dramatically.
Even if the value of recycled glass increased in the future, there would still be the technical
problem of separating glass from other recyclables at the Material Recovery Center. If glass ever
becomes a significant recyclable, it will be done by companies that specialize in collecting and
recycling glass separately from the bulk of the trash generated by the trash society.