Recycling of glass returns

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Glass recycling is back, and with it, a chance for us to close the loop for the glass that we use and throw away here. This is big news. Happy Earth Day, San Angelo!

In a landfill, it takes glass 1 million years to completely decompose. A million years of decomposing beer bottles on the wall, take one down, pass it around, and that song, even more than the original, would seemingly never end.

Waste glass is a renewable resource. It can be crushed, melted, refined and remade into new products in the same way as natural resources like sand and stone aggregate.

Unlike common recycled products such paper, plastic and most metals — which are collected here and shipped elsewhere to be remade into new products — waste glass can be processed and reused without ever leaving town.

All of the glass from the Citizen's Recycling Center, Go Green and Recycle's curbside pick-up service and Goodfellow Air Force Base is processed at the Go Green and Recycle lot.

There, the glass pulverizer tumbles the crushed glass to eliminate sharp edges and can produce cutlets of different sizes for uses that range from crafts to construction.

As a city, successfully reusing the majority of our own recycled glass would be a huge step forward in walking full circle with our waste.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 90 percent of recycled glass is used to make new containers. Glass can be recycled in this way indefinitely. A market to use San Angelo's recycled glass cutlets in this way has not yet become available, but we have other options for using this local resource on a larger scale at this time.

Glass cutlets can be used by residents for crafts, household decor and in landscape design. According to Sam Tambunga, owner of Go Green and Recycle, the main customer base for the cutlets here in San Angelo have had these purposes in mind. As citizens, consumers and business owners, we should look into possible ways to use recycled glass cutlets in local construction and building projects. Because, let's face it, it doesn't take much glass to fill a fish tank or decorate a plaster of Paris cross.

To fully take advantage of this local resource, we need to act on a larger scale — including using it for construction-based purposes such as making play sand, filter media, drainage media, sandblast media, concrete, glass countertops, wall insulation, tile and road construction.

The city of Abilene is a few steps ahead of us and can provide practical examples of building with recycled glass.

Bob Irving, manager of Abilene Recycling Center, reported that in addition to residential use, glass cutlets produced by the Abilene Recycling Center have been used as the base for local roads and in plumbing projects as a fill and base for pipes. They are also occasionally sold for commercial use.

Another example can be found at C.M. Co. on South Treadway in Abilene, where the cutlets were used over a black tar surface to coat a parking lot in order to keep the tar off the cars in the lot.

Ideas abound. A study by the Texas Tech University College of Engineering for the Texas Department of Transportation concluded that the recycled glass cutlet "appears to be an excellent supplement or replacement for gravel in many construction applications."

So before you design your kitchen remodel, fix your pool's filter or fill your kid's sand box this summer, consider your local green and glassy alternative.

Call 325-949-2000 for information about obtaining San Angelo's own recycled glass cutlets for use in your spring and summer building projects, and share your ideas with others.

Residents can drop their glass off at the San Angelo Friends of the Environment Recycling Center at 702 Warehouse Road or have their recycling picked up by Go Green and Recycle curbside service. Commercial businesses can do a one-time or monthly pick-up with Go Green and Recycle.