CONWAY — The Conway Sanitation Department has always accepted glass for recycling, but few people participated because of the hassle of removing the paper labels, Recycling Coordinator Angie Howard said.
“If you’ve ever tried to scratch off a paper label from a glass bottle, it’s hard to do that,” Howard said. “ People weren’t willing to sit there and scratch off the labels.”
Glass recycling is on the upswing since the city worked out a deal with a Missouri company that is paying the Conway Sanitation Department for its glass - lids, labels and all.
Weekly curbside glass recycling started May 21, and Sanitation Director Cheryl Harrington said, “It’s been going strong ever since.”
The city provides free, 18-gallon bins for anyone in Conway who wants to recycle glass, and the bins are picked up on trash day for no additional charge.
People who aren’t Conway Sanitation Department customers also can bring glass to the landfill at no charge, Harrington said.
Ripple Glass of Kansas City, Mo., contacted the Sanitation Department about buying its glass.
“Ripple came to us and made a proposal that they would take all the glass we could get,” Harrington said. “We could leave the lids on; we could leave the labels on. They don’t care what color it is.”
Ripple will pay Conway $1 a pound for the glass, grind it and sell it to a Fiberglas-insulation company in Kansas City.
Harrington toured the Missouri glass-recycling facility in May and said it was “fascinating.”
Before this source, there was no outlet for Conway’s glass, except to grind it to use as “road base,” Howard said.
“If we were having to pay the freight to get the glass to Ripple, or wherever it was going, it wouldn’t be economically feasible because glass is so heavy,” Howard said. “It would cost more than it would benefit us to keep it out of the landfill.”
So far, Harrington said, the city has spent about $3,500 total on the program, including the cost of the 1,200 initial bins and a trailer to pick them up.
Harrington said a bunker was built at the Sanitation Department to hold the glass. Ripple Glass hasn’t come to pick it up, yet - Conway has to collect about 24,000 pounds first.
Even though many food containers today are made from plastic, Harrington said, there is still plenty of glass to be recycled.
“You wouldn’t believe how much glass is in that bunker,” she said, laughing. “Conway has a lot of beer drinkers.”
Harrington said neither she nor her husband drinks alcohol, and she has been surprised at the varieties of beer.
“I’m going over there - what kind of bottle is that? You wouldn’t believe some of the names of this stuff,” she said.
Harrington said the goal is to get restaurants involved in recycling the glass, too.
“We want them to participate, but we know we’re going to have something different for them,” she said.
Restaurants will need bigger bins, and pickup may have to be on a daily basis, Harrington said.
Howard said she plans to visit restaurants in the next couple of weeks and send out letters telling them about the new glass-recycling program.
Harrington said that after the Conway program is running smoothly, glass recycling will be considered for Faulkner County residents.
For more information or to get a glass-recycling bin, call (501) 450-6155.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.
River Valley Ozark, Pages 59 on 06/21/2012