Recycle Glass Week Round Up

Americans show growing support for glass container recycling during GPI’s second annual Recycle Glass Week!

GPI’s second annual Recycle Glass Week, held September 12-18, united communities across the U.S. with glass container manufacturers, suppliers, and recyclers around local events to build awareness and boost glass bottle recycling. With 55 awareness activities in 20 states, Recycle Glass Week created buzz across the country that recycling glass bottles and jars has powerful environmental and energy saving benefits.

Check out some highlights:

Indianapolis Bars and Restaurants Benefit from “Recycling 100—A Broad Ripple Recycling Event”

In a “win-win” collaboration, Verallia, formally Saint-Gobain Containers, and Green Broad Ripple Village in Indianapolis, Indiana, organized the drop off of 100 glass bottle recycling bins for bars and restaurants during Recycle Glass Week as part of the Broad Ripple glass bottle recycling program. For this expanded recycling initiative, Strategic Materials donated a second large collection receptacle. The recycled glass will be sold to Verallia’s Dunkirk plant where it will be re-melted and formed into new glass containers. The Broad Ripple collaboration should result in the collection of more than 20 tons of recycled glass each month for bottle-to-bottle recycling! More

Students Learn about Glass Bottle Recycling through Verallia Captain Cullet Educational Events

Verallia, formerly Saint-Gobain Containers, educated elementary school students about the importance of choosing and recycling glass in California, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin. They also continue to reach out to youth across the country through a new virtual educational program on the Captain Cullet website.

Community Glass Container Recycling Drives Get Results

Anchor Glass Container collected 17 tons of glass for bottle-to-bottle recycling! Anchor Glass Container's Jacksonville, Florida, employees collected an extraordinary 9.5 tons of glass containers with their second-annual Recycle Glass Week employee shift competition. Anchor’s Henryetta, Oklahoma, plant employees collected an impressive 5 tons of glass bottles and jars around the community, and in Salem, New Jersey, over 2 tons of glass was collected at the Anchor facility. In Winchester, Indiana, Anchor collected just over 1,000 lbs of glass and made a generous donation to the local food pantry with food items packaged in glass containers.

Community members gathered in Atlanta, Georgia, Muskogee, Oklahoma, Tracy, California, and Zanesville, Ohio, for O-I’s glass container collection events. O-I employees at the North American Headquarters in Perrysburg, Ohio, collected 4 tons of glass bottles and jars for closed-loop recycling—exceeding their goal. Read the news article

Rocky Mountain Bottle Company collected nearly a ton of glass over 10 days in and around the Wheat Ridge, Colorado area, which was enough to meet the company’s goal and trigger a $1000 donation to the United Way! Based on these results, they are also working to make the glass-only recycling bin in Westminster, CO permanent.

And in Houston, Texas, residents rallied for glass during We CAN Recycle Inc’s first-ever G-Cycle recycling collection event, where people stopped by to learn about value of glass container recycling and drop-off their glass bottles and jars.

Check out more events and photos. A complete wrap-up of 2010 Recycle Glass Week events will be available on the GPI web site and in the October issue of Inside Glass Packaging.