Glass recycling event in Hampton bumped up to 5 days to meet demand
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Residents in Hampton and many other communities can no longer put glass out for recycling, but there are plenty of people who cringe at the thought of their used bottles and jars being tossed in a landfill.
“There are a lot of people who have simply been trained to recycle,” said Hampton manager Chris Lochner. “And there are others who believe that it’s essential to participate in recycling whenever possible.”
Hampton learned just how passionate some people are about reducing waste when it held a glass recycling event in the spring.
“When we set the program up, we were hoping to fill one dumpster,” Lochner said. “We ended up filling five of them. We had people coming in from Moon Township to drop off glass.”
Hampton will once again play host to a recycling event — this time for five days from Oct. 10 to 15.
The collection bins will be set up from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the parking of the Hampton Township Community Swimming Pool at 3101 McCully Road.
There is no cost for residents of any community to drop off all colors of glass bottles, jars and jugs. All containers must be empty, but caps and lids can be left on.
To coincide with the glass collection, a free paper-shredding event also will be held in the pool parking lot from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 10. To manage the flow of traffic, residents must sign up through the office of state Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-38th, who is sponsoring the collection.
While the commercial waste haulers that provide recycling services for municipalities say exporting glass, especially to China, has become a financial bust, there is a domestic market for glass, according to Ashley DiGregorio, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Resource Council, which is coordinating the collection event.
“Western Pennsylvania and the neighboring states have such a strong glass industry,” she said.”Glass is still a high valuable commodity that can be recycled endlessly.”
Holding glass-only recycling events also is a way to overcome a major obstacle — and expense — recyclers face: sorting the trash into separate piles of glass, plastic and cardboard.
When Waste Management informed local municipalities last year that glass would no longer be collected at the curbside, “contamination” was cited among the major reasons.
Company officials said the contamination occurs when glass that’s been mixed in with plastic and cardboard breaks. When that happens, the entire batch goes to a landfill because of the cost and danger of trying to remove the shards by hand.
“When residents and businesses bring glass to these drop-off sites, those bottles and jars are ending up in a facility that typically will fully recycle the material within 30 days,” she said.
The glass collected by PRC is stored at Superior Mulch in McKees Rocks, which is owned by Cap Glass. The glass is then transported to one of Cap’s recycling facilities to be sorted and remanufactured.
Hampton’s experience with its first glass recycling program and PRC’s growth from one-day “pop-up” events to five-day drop-offs may provide a glimpse into how recycling could be done better and cheaper in the future.
“I think it’s a clear sign that people not only believe in the value of recycling, but will gladly do it if there’s a way,” DiGregorio said. “The loss of access to glass recycling in curbside collection could be replaced with a drop-off infrastructure that allows communities and businesses to place containers in locations that are easy to access.”