New effort to recycle glass across Eastern Washington

90,000 tons of glass goes to the landfill in eastern Washington alone, every year. Something that’s hard to hear when you learn that new glass can be made with up to 95% recycled glass.

Organizations, cities and even people have tried different methods for collecting glass and getting it to recycling plants in Seattle and Oregon.

The biggest hurdle is the cost for individual groups and even counties to send glass in a cost-effective way.

The organization Big Recyclers is working to solve that problem according to Vice President Katie Masferrer.

“Well by collecting it into larger quantities we can kind of pool resources from a number of different communities in order to make it economically feasible,” she said.

The organization plans to work with wineries and other glass packaging groups and gather larger quantities of glass over time from all over Eastern Washington at a hub in Pasco.

Right now, they are working on spokes, or drop-off locations, in Benton City and Walla Walla to collect all of the glass.

Once enough is collected Masferrer said it will be sent off to glass manufacturers who actually prefer used glass.

“Glass that's already glass melts at a lower temperature so for every 10% they use to make new glass, they have an energy savings of 2-3%,” she said.

She said they also save money on buying new materials like sand they would normally use.

The organization hopes to work with cities like Walla Walla to make it easier to collect clean glass from the community as well as businesses.