Glass - The Recycling Diet - Week 4
Listen to the archived show from today (March 25, 2025) at AshevilleFM.org.
This week we reintroduce GLASS to our recycling system.
Glass is an awesome inert material! It holds hot and cold things, does not cling to smells or flavors, and can be reused over and over again!
Glass can also be infinitely recycled under perfect circumstances.
First things first, check if glass is accepted in your area & through your hauler. Glass is a costly material to collect and recycle that ultimately does not reap much financial reward, so some municipalities opt out.
Why is it costly?
Glass is heavy,
costs more to transport and causes more wear on the roads,
excessive wear and tear on the collection trucks and sorting machinery,
broken glass ruins cement floors in collection facilities,
not easy to collect because broken/whole glass jars act differently in the sorting systems.
Is it even being recycled?
Maybe.
Some areas have outlets for the collected glass materials (aka businesses that will purchase in bulk and refine the collected glass materials).
How it is collected, which is determined by the municipalities, resale markets, haulers/collectors, and residents that participate in the recycling system, all of these things make a huge difference in whether the materials will be recycled.
When glass is put into a single stream recycling bin (all materials collected together), the cullet (the little pieces of glass) is contaminated with all the little contaminants that got tossed into the recycling bin.
If you look closely at the pile, you can see all kinds of trash- bottle caps, styrofoam peanuts, shredded paper, needles (okay, you can’t see those lol but they definitely pop up in recycling all. the. time.)
Then there are places that “Source Separate” materials, meaning the resident/customer separates their own materials to utilize the recycling system, and this makes the materials better quality, cleaner, higher grade when reselling, and more likely that the stuff will actually be recycled into new items!
THIS GLASS IS BEING RECYCLED INTO OTHER CONTAINERS
This is a glass only recycling drop spot. Notice how clean the materials are! This makes it super easy to actually recycle these glass containers into more glass containers.
Okay, now for the real question:
What glass items can you put in the curbside recycling bin?
➡️ Beverage Bottles and Food Jars ⬅️
Why only those? Because for them to hold food and beverages and be sold commercially, the materials used to make the glass are regulated.
FAQ:
Lids are okay if attached to the jar or bottle.
Loose lids get thrown in garbage. Detached metal lids can be recycled in scrap metal recycling collection- not curbside, or can be discarded in garbage.
Labels are fine. Just leave labels on the jars and bottles.
Any color glass is accepted - brown, green, clear.
some facilities require the bottles to be separated by color *swoon* and this means their materials are even MORE valuable to be recycled! Make sure you follow your local rules. Not sure what they are? Type in your town and the word RECYCLE - hopefully you’ll find info there. (Still confused? Email me at thegreenassistant@gmail.com and I will help you out!)
What if the jar or bottle is oily and I can’t get it clean?
Trash. Save your time and water and stress. Save the recycling too! Just throw that glass oil bottle in the garbage can after you finish the EVOO. The oil, if left in the bottle that gets tossed in the recycling bin, will contaminate the paper and cardboard materials in the recycling, degrading materials by the TON. So leave out that one dirty item and save tons of recycling. :)
Don’t focus on all the other “whatabouts” because the answer is just no.
Repurpose, reuse, rehome, reduce, refuse those glass vases, window panes, mirrors, drinking glasses, eye glasses, candle jars. But do not recycle them.
The only glass that is recyclable includes beverage bottles and food jars (sold commercially).
That’s it.
When you are ready to get rid of the other items, like ceramics, kitchen plates, your chipped pyrex measuring cup, those go in the GARBAGE BIN, inside a garbage bag (two if there are sharp broken pieces), to make sure that they make it to the landfill. Do your part to keep litter off of our streets!
Okay, this is all I have in me for these notes right now.
We are well on our way to writing the book though! That will be a relief, to be able to share the information clearly and broadly in a simple format. My ADHD brain likes the idea of that book. 🐰
UPCOMING EVENTS
April 5-6 - Connect Beyond Festival
https://connectbeyondfestival.com
April 11 - Brown Bag Lunch at Bent Creek with NC Forest Service
Topic: “Invasive Plants in our Forested Watersheds”
No Cost. Limited to 50 attendees.
Email christine.martens@usda.gov to register and sign up for their email list to attend future events!
Okay, I owe yall the notes for Paper Recycling too, but if I want to get these notes published today (like I said I would - I really want to be a person that keeps my word!) then I need to focus.
I will adjust the date of the PAPER recycling notes so that they go in order- you KNOW my ADHD isn’t gonna let them be out of order lol
In next week’s episode of Green Assistant Radio, we will dive into Week 5 of The Recycling Diet when we reintroduce plastic into our recycling stream. (eek)
+ We will also welcome Ashley of Happy Roots NC, an organization growing food and teaching folks to grow their own through gardens in schools, community gardens, and assisted living facilities.
Tune in Tuesday April 1 at 11am on 103.3 Asheville FM.