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Ask The Editor: Why doesn’t Glendale recycle glass?

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Question:

Just curious why Glendale is the only major city in Arizona much less the entire U.S., that does not recycle glass. I questioned this several years ago and was told “we were looking into it but recycling glass makes costs too high.” Why can other cities make it work? I take my glass to a friend's house in Phoenix and Peoria for recycling. And at what point do we look at the environmental costs of just throwing everything in the landfill?

— Lisa C., Glendale

Thank you for your question Lisa. Here’s what we know.

Glass of any kind is not accepted in Glendale’s curbside recycling. And while we’re on the subject, other items not acceptable in the city program include carpeting or clothes, diapers, pet food bags, drywall, fast food items (straws, cups, wrappers), furnace filters, hangers (metal or plastic), landscaping, non-container plastic (plastic cutlery, bubble wrap, etc.), plastic bags, scrap metal, shoes, Styrofoam, tile or toys.

But back to glass.

“Glass is not part of the program because when glass is mixed in a single recycling system such as our recycling program, it easily breaks and becomes a contaminant in the recycling stream that contaminates other recyclables like paper and cardboard, lowering their value,” the city’s Solid Waste Superintendent, Amy Moreno, shared with the Glendale Independent. “The future of the residential curbside recycling program will be discussed with the city council in the near future. As for now,  there is a glass drop-off location at the city’s landfill located at 11480 W. Glendale Ave. Also there is an app on the city’s recycling webpage call ‘Recycle Right Wizard’ that allows you to research an item and it will tell you how to dispose of it.”

Check out the Recycle Right Wizard here. Even though this link is through the City of Phoenix, there is an option available to select any Valley city to see about specific items for recycling, including glass, in specific Valley communities, including Glendale.

As for Lisa’s other questions, regarding why some cities include glass among their curbside recycling programs and some don’t, as well as the environmental impacts of recyclable items ending up in landfills, we turned to Dr. Rajesh Buch, director of sustainability practice for the ASU Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service.

“Glass recycling is usually an operational and economic problem,” Dr. Buch wrote to the Independent via email. “Glass is heavy and more expensive to collect and process, and the market has gone down since more aluminum containers have entered the market, so the revenue side has deteriorated. Operationally, it can become a contaminant - it breaks, contaminates other recyclable materials (plastics, paper, etc), is hazardous for employees and it’s hard to sort out. Some glass types aren’t necessarily recyclable in some places - brown vs clear vs green. These various challenges make glass troublesome and cause municipalities to have to make choices as to how they manage the material intake and output of their waste collection programs.”

Dr. Buch also analyzed the environmental impacts of recyclable materials reaching landfills.

“Recyclables in landfills means valuable resources that could create jobs and economic growth are buried, meaning more virgin resources have to be extracted from the planet,” he explained.

“All of that transportation and extraction results in more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and resource consumption. Organics, like landscape and food waste that can be composted, decay in landfills and produce more GHGs. Buried inorganics degrade and leach into soils and water tables. If recyclables are burned or incinerated like in Europe then you have other emissions that are possibly toxic. We are also encountering microplastic contaminants, even in our bodies, that get into water and food systems by unmanaged waste systems causing other potential damage that we do not fully understand at this time.”

Thank you for your question, Lisa. And be sure to visit the City of Glendale’s trash and recycling services page here.

 

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