[greenyes] RE: Env Benefits of Recycling Glass

["Justin Stockdale" <jstockdale@no.address>]

Another thought/rant to ponder;
Like many municipalities, we are faced with difficult decisions regarding glass. Paper contamination making collections problematic, color sorting requirements make bottle markets hard to reach, etc. In the face of so many challenges should we throw up our hands and say goodbye to glass? 
I think not. However it will require taking different approaches than the ideal bottle to bottle loop. In Santa Fe, we have chosen to continue glass collection at the curb, creating a two bin program....and in the process had to face down the age old question of what to do with mixed cullet. The interim answer has been road construction. Certainly not the best use, but it keeps glass in the program and allows us to explore new alternative uses/processes to hopefully return to the bottle to bottle loop. 

I would guess that all of us on this list remember the good old days of refillables, and remember this to be one of the first nationwide recycling opportunities (at least I do?) hence, everyone thinks glass is the one material that ought to be recycled...as it was the one thing they have always recycled. 

What I am getting at is we can manage glass as a gravel substitute cost effectively and so there is no reason to give up on it. Sure, glass in asphalt is not the highest and best use, and yes there is an endless supply of minable sand and gravel...but why bury a bottle in a landfill if you don't have to? And the best thing is putting glass under asphalt means it will be "reused" for decades, if not millennia, and you only had to collect it once!

And, just to humor myself....we still have an Executive Director position open for Santa Fe's only landfill. +/- 700 TPD hole with an open door to create just about any diversion program you can think of.

Thanks for the time...
Justin Stockdale
jstockdale@no.address