Westport Announces Pilot Glass Recycling Program

WESTPORT, CT — The town of Westport announced this week the launch of a pilot program to separate glass from the single stream recycling.

In a news release provided by the town, Public Works Director Peter Ratkiewich said DPW has provided a special container at the Transfer Station, located at 300 Sherwood Island Connector, where residents can deposit clean glass beverage bottles, juice jars, condiment bottles and food jars.

According to Ratkiewich, residents are asked to rinse the glass containers, remove lids or caps and place them in a separate box or bin from the single stream recycling.

The clean glass can be deposited in the separate container during the Transfer Station's normal operating hours.

"The problem with glass in the single stream is that it breaks, and then contaminates paper, cardboard, and other recyclables with broken glass particles. This reduces the market value of all recyclables," Ratkiewich said in a news release. "Conversely, small bits of paper, bottle caps, straws and other metals contaminate the glass so much that it can't be effectively recycled, so it either gets used as landfill cover, or is discarded as residual waste. By separating glass from the single stream, contamination is eliminated on both ends, and makes the glass more valuable."

The separated, clean glass will be directed to a glass recycling facility in Beacon Falls, where it is converted to an additive that replaces fly-ash in concrete products and actually makes the concrete stronger, Ratkiewich noted.

This additive also reduces the carbon footprint of the concrete industry as fly ash is a byproduct of coal burning power plants. The new facility will soon have the capacity to take all the glass generated in the state's 169 municipalities.

Ratkiewich said Westport is one of five towns in the 14-town Greater Bridgeport Regional Solid Waste Interlocal Committee that are doing a "soft-launch" of the program to work out logistics and procedures. This pilot will be expanded into a full pilot project with the other nine towns in about six months to a year.

"We are working with our partners at Oak Ridge Waste in Shelton to make this program as successful as possible," Ratkiewich said. "A similar program was implemented in the Housatonic Resource Recovery Authority (HRRA) about a year ago and was a huge success. We aim to duplicate that program."

First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker noted this was an important step in making the town's recycling program more effective and reducing the portion of its solid waste that goes to landfills.

"Westport is proud to be part of the group leading the program," Tooker said in a news release, "that we hope to see implemented across the whole region and the entire state."