The Kansas City Star reports Ripple Glass in Kansas City is on track to exceed its first-year glass bottle collection goals and is already planning updates to its glass processing plant so more beer bottles—the company’s biggest glass recycling commodity—and other glass bottles and jars can be endlessly recycled. The company is also preparing to launch an initiative to collect bottles from bars and restaurants. “About half the glass in the area comes out of bars and restaurants,” said Jeff Krum, Ripple principal and co-founder. “That’s a big, untapped market for us.”

The original goal for Ripple’s first year was 6,500 tons of glass, but the company now hopes that number will be in the 8,000 to 10,000 ton range. Glass bottles and jars are collected at about 70 drop off locations in the metro area. According to Ripple, 8,000 tons would be only about 10% of the glass containers in Kansas City that could be recycled. More

The Washington State Recycling Association (WSRA) will hold “Recycling Glass for Value” on September 24th. The event is one of three that WSRA organizes as part of its Washington Recycles Every Day series. These events bring together 60-80 public and private-sector professionals from all over Washington State to discuss serious recycling issues and provide meaningful tours of working facilities and technologies in the field.

As part of the event, representatives from Strategic Materials and eCullet, both glass processors, will present. And attendees will tour the Verallia, formerly Saint-Gobain Container, glass manufacturing plant and the eCullet glass processing facility. eCullet is producing more than 8,000 tons/month of furnace-ready cullet for Verallia’s glass manufacturing plant where they are now using nearly 50% recycled glass—up from 17% in 2009—in the manufacture of new glass wine bottles. Get more information and register

Recycle More NC is North Carolina’s third social marketing recycling campaign to launch in 2010. While previous campaigns targeted children (Recycle Guys) and 18-34 year olds (RE3.org), Recycle More NC is designed for the 35-55 demographic who has access to curbside recycling, but may not be recycling away from home. With Recycle More NC, the N.C. Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance is hoping to increase the amount of curbside recycling, but also recycling at work and when people are on the go.

Recycling “On the Go” is more than just finding a bin nearby. It’s about holding onto your empty bottle until you get home, or asking the manager of your favorite restaurant to provide recycling. It’s about keeping that valuable commodity out of the waste stream and into a recycling bin, where it can be remade into a new product, like glass bottles or jars.

New Mexico’s recycling system faces many challenges including a lack of infrastructure, low population densities, low-income and the rural nature of the state, resulting in a recycling rate of 12.4% as compared to the national average of 33%.

"This far-reaching program aims to build upon several years of strategic planning to assist underserved and rural communities develop their recycling programs so that they are sustainable, readily expandable and can ultimately provide opportunities to recycle for all New Mexicans. I believe this project will change the face of recycling in New Mexico," says English Bird, NMRC Executive Director.  
 
Funds will be used for launch of a statewide recycled materials marketing cooperative, strategic placement of recycling equipment infrastructure using a “hub and spoke” model, and education and assistance to targeted communities for Pay-As-You-Throw as a tool to incentivize source reduction and waste diversion activities. More

Six years ago, Jeff Dahl was a pioneer, collecting glass bottles for recycling from a handful of local Colorado Springs, CO bars and taking them in his Chevy S10 pickup and trailer to Rocky Mountain Bottle Co. (RMBC). Today, Dahl Recycling services over 80 bars and restaurants, as well as Ft. Carson, the Air Force Academy, and residential customers collecting over 110 tons a month of glass bottles for recycling. And they’re still going to RMBC to make new glass containers.

About a year and a half ago, Dahl nearly lost all of his customers to the single-stream recycling collection program that began in Colorado Springs. To keep his customers and ensure that RMBC received high-quality recycled glass, Dahl decided to get into the waste hauling business as well.

“I was going to lose my bar accounts to single-stream recycling, so now I’m in the trash business,” says Dahl. “By keeping glass out of single stream and recycling cardboard I reduce my customers’ cost for trash service, plus the recycled material is cleaner.” Dahl also collects paper, plastic, and aluminum for recycling from his 200 residential customers, about 80% of whom recycle.

Muncie Mission has established a weekly route throughout the city to pick up glass recyclables, and SGCI donates recycling collection bins for organizations that want to get involved. Currently eight organizations are participating in the program—everything from restaurants to churches. Plus, Muncie Mission offers drop-off glass collection at their recycling facility.

And in August of 2009, SGCI expanded glass recycling efforts at its Muncie headquarters. All employees were given a recycling bin to collect glass recyclables at home and return them to the drop-off container located in the headquarters parking lot [photo right]. Muncie Mission then picks up the recyclables, takes them to their recycling center and removes any contaminants. The finished cullet is used at SGCI’s Dunkirk, IN plant to make new glass container. As of February 28th, SGCI employees have recycled nearly 10 tons of glass.

The Coca-Cola Company and Keep America Beautiful have opened the spring grant cycle for the Coca-Cola/KAB Recycling Bin Grant Program. Applications for this effort to promote and support community recycling are open until March 12, 2010. Find out more at www.bingrant.org.

Grants are open to government agencies, civic organizations, schools, nonprofit groups and for-profit companies. Successful applicants will be notified on or before April 22.

Grant recipients have the benefit of receiving both donated recycling bins and expertise on how to set up recycling programs from KAB. The grant program is part of Coca-Cola’s significant investment in recycling programs and initiatives in the U.S.

Ratified in January 2009, “Students for Bar Recycling” took on the challenge of establishing recycling at all the bars in Lawrence, KS, where the University resides, with a focus on glass containers.

The student organization was started by Andrew Stanley and Ben Hornung, University of Kansas seniors. “We were watching a game at a sports bar and asked them what they do with all the empty bottles, and they said they didn’t recycle them,” says Hornung. They checked with other bars and restaurants and found none were recycling. “Lawrence is pretty progressive with respect to the green movement, so we we’re blown away that there wasn’t recycling in place.”

But starting November 2009, thanks to the efforts of the student organization, Ripple Glass began a trial run with a bar in Lawrence called The Barrel House, a piano bar, where they now have drop-off bins for glass containers. “We want to do whatever we can to make it a successful pilot,” says Hornung. That is the focus this semester, along with adding more local bars.

According to CRI Executive Director Susan Collins, "Once the materials are mixed together in a single-stream recycling system, there will be cross-contamination of materials and significant glass breakage. Those cross-contamination and breakage issues then result in increased costs for the secondary processors."

According to the report, on average, 40% of glass from single-stream collection winds up in landfills, while 20% is small broken glass used for low-end applications. Only 40% is recycled into new glass containers and fiberglass. In contrast, mixed glass from dual-stream systems yields an average of 90% being recycled into containers and fiberglass, with 10% glass fines used for low-end applications, and nearly nothing sent to landfill. In container-deposit systems, color-sorted material results in 98% being recycled and only 2% marketed as glass fines. Get the report

New Houston, TX restaurant, Ruggles Green, is serving up organic and natural food, as well as reducing its waste stream and recycling.

According to a report from KHOU-TV in Houston, one of the restaurants biggest waste streams is glass. They have two containers for glass as well as for cardboard. Restaurant partner Federico Marques reports, “If restaurants focused only on glass and cardboard and nothing else, they could probably reduce their landfill waste by half.”

Between glass bottles and cardboard, the restaurant recycles almost 80% of waste generated. In October 2009, glass bottles represented 53% of their recycling mix, with cardboard next at 25%. The glass is collected by Mark Austin of WeCANRecycle, who was featured in the June 2009 issue of GPI’s Inside Glass Packaging. Watch the video

In South Seattle, Washington, a joint initiative between Saint-Gobain Containers, the nations’ largest manufacturer of wine bottles, and eCullet, developer of state-of-the-art camera sorting technology for processing recycled glass, will help produce new glass containers made with double the amount of recycled glass —increasing the recycled content from 17% to 35%— with the potential to increase more in the future.

"Since we produce millions of bottles per year at the plant, this is a critical step to help us reach our company-wide goal of using 50% recycled content by 2013," said Peter Walters, Vice President of Purchasing and Distribution for Saint-Gobain Containers.

The eCullet facility, in pilot phase of operation since May 2009, has ramped up since the ribbon cutting in September and is currently processing about 5,500 tons a month. When running at full capacity, they plan to deliver 7,500 - 8,000 tons a month of furnace-ready cullet to SGCI for making new glass bottles.

“Everything we process goes to Saint-Gobain,” said Farook Afsari, Chairman and Founder of eCullet. An independent facility, eCullet is located on space leased from SGCI near their manufacturing plant. “From the time the cullet is produced to the time it can be introduced into the batch is literally three to five minutes,” says Afsari. “This makes for an exceptional carbon footprint on the marketing side.”

And according to Walters, “the plant is already seeing substantial reductions in energy and energy costs.” For every 10% cullet used, SGCI is able to reduce energy costs by 4%. And using 10% more recycled glass has led to decreases in nitrogen oxide, a greenhouse gas, and reductions in raw materials. “Glass is endlessly recyclable,” said Walters. “Glass bottles and jars should never end up in a landfill.”

The environmental benefits of the technology extend to customers as well. SGCI's largest customer at the South Seattle plant in the Pacific Northwest is Ste. Michelle Winery located in Woodinville, WA. The increased recycled content in SGCI's bottles allows the Winery to further reflect its own commitment to sustainable practices.

Recycled glass is sourced through single stream curbside collection programs in Seattle and from material coming out of Vancouver, BC’s bottle deposit program. eCullet also has plans to accept recycled glass from curbside programs in Vancouver. “We’re capable of taking color sorted or mixed glass,” said Afsari. “The technology is flexible enough to sort various color mixes and take out all the ceramics and other contaminants.” More

Kansas City, MO residents can now drop off their glass bottles and jars at one of 60 locations in the metro area, including Whole Foods, Price Chopper and Hen House grocery stores, Sprint Nextel, Hallmark Cards, the Harley Davidson Plant, and community centers.

Glass bottles and jars recycled through this extended drop-off system will then be taken to Ripple Glass, which opens December 1st, for sorting and processing. The finished cullet will be used at a local Owens Corning plant for fiberglass insulation.

Each drop-off container (photo right) holds 8-10 tons of mixed-color glass, but Stacia Stelk, Executive Director at Ripple Glass, admits they aren’t sure how much to expect. “We hope to take in 6,000 to 7,000 tons conservatively in the first year, and by year three around 15,000 to 20,000 annually.”

A feasibility study conducted prior to project development revealed that only 5% of Kansas City residents recycle glass. According to Stelk, they expect there is a big opportunity to significantly increase the recycling rate, estimating there is 80,000 tons of glass thrown away each year. Glass is not collected through the City’s single stream curbside collection program, so residents are “anxious to recycle their glass,” says Stelk.

A U.S. EPA study released in September finds that 42% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions come from the goods we produce, consumer, and throw away. And, in 2006, recycling resulted in the avoidance of nearly 183 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the report, materials as well as land management directly and indirectly impacts 58% to 62% of greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the U.S. EPA report suggests that there are large reduction opportunities through source reduction and recycling.

For example, an increase in the 2006 MSW recycling and composting rate—currently 32.5%—to 50% would lead to the avoidance of 70 to 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. And, reducing product packaging by half could cut as much as 105 million tons of CO2 equivalents per year. Get the full report

When Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino and THEhotel (seen in photo at left) were built ten and six years ago, the stage was set for poolside days and exciting nightlife, but not recycling.

All that changed in August 2007, and in 2008, they recycled a total of 6.6 million pounds, including 233,600 pounds (116.8 tons) of glass on the two properties. Now they let guests know they are “Riding the Green Wave.”

Their recycling rate in 2007, the year they began, was 6.5%, in 2008 17.6% and for 2009, they are on track to almost double that. In addition to glass, other containers and mixed paper, they recycled 2.2 million pounds of cardboard in 2008 and 1.7 million pounds of food, which is sent to a local pig farm.

O-I has invited employees at its world headquarters in Perrysburg, OH to become good stewards of the environment by offering an on-site glass recycling program. Launched in March 2009, the program is an effort to increase the amount of high quality recycling by providing separate bins for flint, amber, and green glass containers.

O-I has partnered with Glass Recyclers to pick up, clean and sort the glass containers. The cullet from Glass Recyclers is then purchased by O-I’s Charlotte, MI facility to be reused in the manufacturing process to create new glass bottles.

To date, the program has collected a total of 11 tons of containers and continues to grow as more employees and the local community actively bring in glass packaging to be recycled on campus.