WILBUR DEAN’S CORRESPONDENCE
Ms. Dayna this email is to confirm that Levy County is no longer able to receive glass as a recyclable because we have no venders that will take it. Thank You and all your customers for working with us. We are perusing all opportunities to find someone to take glass out of our waste stream. Once again Thank You for all the work and effort that Waste Pro does in keeping our communities clean.
WASTE PRO CORRESPONDENCE
November 1, 2017
To our municipal partners in Levy County:
Recently, we were notified by Levy County that their recycling disposal facility is no longer accepting glass in the recycle stream. Please see the attached email from Mr. Wilbur Dean, Levy County Administrator. All across the United States, cities and counties, such as Levy County, are struggling with the fact there is no economic value derived for recycling processors to accept glass. Therefore there is virtually no market for glass to be recycled. This means glass is either stockpiled or landfilled at this time.
For the past couple of years, an enormous challenge to cities and counties is communicating the current situation with glass recycling to residents. This situation is compounded by the fact that glass and organics in the recycling stream (contamination) will not be accepted by the processing companies to which we send the sorted material. Companies like Waste Pro are aggressively working with cities and counties to explain this temporary situation. The market will come back, we just don’t know when.
We also recognize that glass going to landfills has a negative perception, yet from an environmental standpoint, it is simply silica (sand) with no environmental impact, as described in the Atlanta article below. However, glass is also extremely abrasive which accelerates wear and tear on recycling equipment, again, with no marketable value.
Many waste and recycling companies typically operate Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) that receive paper, cardboard, plastic and formerly glass. Recycling material is sorted at these facilities and sent to recycling processors that return (sell) the product back into the marketplace. Again, if there is no market, processors won’t accept the product. Waste Pro operates very large (500,000 square foot automated MRF in Atlanta) and small MRFs sized to the local market such as in Ocala and Sarasota/ Bradenton, Florida.
At Waste Pro, our goal is to process as much recycled waste as possible. We look forward to continued technological advances in markets for all recycling, including glass.
http://atlantaintownpaper.com/2016/06/glass-recycling-a-clear-understanding-of-a-sensible-policy/