SEATTLE (Recycling Monster): DeKalb County’s glass recycling program may be teaming with a private service for expansion amid concerns about recent unpublicized closures of drop-off sites and improper disposal.
Facing pressure last week – including a Board of Commissioners (BOC) committee meeting and circulation of a video allegedly showing workers dumping glass in a landfill – county officials say they plan to expand the drop-off program’s collection sites, but are offering few details. They blame illegal dumping and noise for the recent, abrupt shuttering of other locations, including two at fire stations.
Strategic Materials, Inc. (SMI), the private recycling company that receives and pays for the glass at a College Park facility, says it is working with the county on some kind of expansion.
“We are working to improve and expand the [DeKalb County] program with their partnership, and we are optimistic this will take place before the end of the year,” said Laura Hennemann, SMI’s senior vice president of sustainability and corporate affairs, in an email. “They have been great partners. … I’m not able to share specifics, but we are working to improve and expand the collection of glass for recycling.”
SMI last fall bought a drop-off recycling company called Ripple Glass, which began operating elsewhere in metro Atlanta earlier this year.
Meanwhile, confusion and concern about the County’s glass recycling – including longstanding resident reports of sanitation crews throwing recyclables into the regular landfill trash – have sparked a new commercial competitor.
Peace of Mind Glass Recycling, a residential pickup service in parts of Atlanta and southwestern DeKalb, launched in May out of owner Grant Wallace’s concerns that the County’s glass was going into the trash instead. He’s the one who circulated the video – shot by a friend who wants to remain anonymous – that allegedly shows County workers emptying a glass recycling bin into the Seminole Road Landfill instead of SMI’s facility. Decaturish could not immediately confirm the veracity of the video, which was shot in June, according to information in a copy provided by Wallace. However, the county told Atlanta News First it reviewed the video and “reminded” sanitation crews of the “protocol” of taking glass to the recycling facility.
Wallace, a resident of unincorporated DeKalb, says he used to take his own glass to a County drop-off location in Exchange Park, but grew dubious that it truly ended up at SMI rather than the landfill. His door-to-door business is intended to be not only more convenient for residents, but also to confirm that the glass goes directly to SMI’s recycling facility. “I’m only going one place, and one place only,” he says. “That’s why it’s called Peace of Mind.”
Wallace says he recently saw numerous Ripple Glass bins at SMI’s College Park facility, clearly for deployment soon somewhere in the metro area. He’s rooting for that service as well as his own business.
“That part is all good news, so I’m stoked on that,” he says. “But I think there’s big problems right now with recycling in general and especially with glass because it’s clearly [sometimes] going to the landfill.”
Courtesy: www.decaturish.com
