Glass is 100% recyclable, yet only a third of it gets recycled each year. Here's how private groups are stepping up to expand access and improve the process.

• A lack of convenient access and issues like landfill economics have made glass recycling difficult.
• Groups such as Ripple Glass, Ace Glass, and Phoenix Glass are trying to help by easing the process.

Glass bottles, jars, and other containers are 100% recyclable. Yet, only about a third of these items get recycled each year, a recent report by the Glass Recycling Foundation said. The remaining 6 million metric tons, the report said, end up in landfills.

The reason is that many consumers and businesses lack convenient access to glass recycling in their communities. Cities such as Little Rock, Arkansas, and St. Augustine, Florida, stopped collecting glass through their recycling programs over the past few years.

In 2018, China imposed restrictions on imported recyclables, making it more expensive for municipalities to process glass, which is heavy and costly to transport. Glass also breaks easily and can contaminate other recyclables when placed in single-stream collection, where consumers put all recyclable items in the same bin.

"Landfill economics" — a conflict of interest that arises when waste haulers and sorting-facility operators also own landfills because they know that quality and contamination affect market value — also increases the likelihood of glass getting thrown away, said Scott DeFife, the president of the trade association the Glass Packaging Institute.

"The glass commodity from these facilities carries contamination levels well above 25%, making it easier to justify sending it to landfill, where the company gets paid by weight to dispose of their garbage," he said.

The pandemic has affected glass collection, too, said Marissa Segundo, a senior communications strategist with the Glass Recycling Coalition. Many bottle-redemption states, including California, New York, and Michigan, closed processing centers in 2020 and, since reopening, collection hasn't reached pre-pandemic levels.

Glass companies are developing solutions to boost recycling

Private companies have been stepping up to offer glass-recycling solutions in their communities. As part of its efforts to become a zero-landfill business, Boulevard Brewery partnered with community organizations and other companies to launch Ripple Glass in 2009 in Kansas City, Missouri, after the city pulled glass out of its single-stream recycling.

The company now picks up glass at about 300 businesses and is piloting a program to offer glass-recycling pickup in neighborhoods. Ripple also has hundreds of bins across Kansas City and more in Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri, where consumers can drop off glass.

Mike Patterson, Ripple's president, said the company collected and processed 46,300 tons of glass in 2021. The collected glass is turned into fiberglass insulation, countertops, and flooring through a partnership with manufacturers in Kansas City, Owens Corning and CertainTeed, which use the materials. Patterson said amber-colored glass was separated and used to make beer bottles.

"You take one bottle," he said. "It's consumed, it's recycled, and within 30 days, that same bottle becomes another bottle. If you put that in the landfill, it takes forever to degrade."

Ripple isn't alone. Ace Glass, in Little Rock, began providing residential curbside glass pickup in 2019 for $100 a year, and it began providing free drop-off locations after the city stopped collecting glass. Phoenix Glass offers a similar service in northern Alabama.

Industry groups are working on expanding glass-recycling access

Glass in landfills was a "waste of a recyclable and sustainable raw material," DeFife said. He added that glass recycling promoted local jobs and protected natural resources.

"We keep taking sand and feldspar and all the things out of the ground to make glass," Patterson said. "At some point, you're going to run out of those raw materials. Glass offers the highest recycling yield. Landfills are expensive. We're going to run out of land, too."

Last year, the Glass Packaging Institute released a 10-year plan to increase the US's overall glass-recycling rates to at least 50%, DeFife said. The plan includes expanding bottle-bill laws and commercial recycling programs, investing in glass collection and processing initiatives to divert glass from landfills, and addressing "the broken economics of the waste-management system."

"Consumer and citizen support for glass recycling is critical and can really help," DeFife said. "Dig in and demand better performance, ask lawmakers to do an audit of the local sorting facility to see if they even have proper glass equipment, and suggest they add performance metrics for glass to bids for service contracts."