Glass Recycling Less Profitable

Recycling glass has gone from being a revenue producer for local governments to an expense, but local experts say the program still has long-term value.

"In the last two years, the market became a negative market," said Kathy Hourihan, of the Morris County (New Jersey) Municipal Utilities Authority. "We pay, at worst, $15 a ton (to get rid of the glass), and we happen to be at worst case scenario right now."

The MCMUA, which collects recyclables from 14 towns, has received as much as $5 a ton for glass in the past. The market for glass, however, has changed, with more manufacturers turning to plastic and aluminum and fewer uses being found for recycled glass.

Frank Peluso, of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said plastic and newspaper consistently are moving, though they bring in different amounts of revenues at different times depending upon demand.

In June, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that plastic and glass recycling would be suspended there starting July 1 because the labor-intensive programs are "not cost-effective." The suspensions are expected to save the city approximately $40 million.

Experts and municipal officials in the Garden State remain recycling advocates.

Peluso said that about a decade ago the state was the second-largest producer of glass containers from recycled material. But with fewer markets for post-consumer glass, that picture has changed.

"Today, slowly but surely, glass is being replaced by plastic and aluminum," Peluso said.

Recycled glass usually is turned back into glass containers, but when flint, brown and green glass mix - or worse, break - the glass then becomes almost useless. That, coupled with a decline in the use of glass, makes it harder and harder to sell the product.

Green glass in particular is hard to market.

"There's more glass imported into the country than consumed in any furnaces because, basically, we don't bottle as much liquid into green bottles as we are importing it," said Hourihan, of the municipal utilities authority.

"Imported beer, for example, is associated with green bottles," Hourihan said, so American beer manufacturers prefer brown or clear glass.

Some think the color of the packaging may negatively affect the contents, Hourihan added, so companies producing liquids stay away from green glass.

The MCMUA pays a private contractor, FCR Morris in Mine Hill, to collect and sort glass from 14 Morris County municipalities, including Chatham Township, Chester, the Boontons, the Mendhams, Denville, Dover, Hanover, Florham Park, Morris Plains, Netcong, Randolph, and Rockaway.

About a dozen other municipalities, including Mount Olive, have a deal with the agency whereby the town collects its waste but the MCMUA markets recyclables through FCR.

If the glass market improves, the MUA could pay less, but "we anticipate to be at worst case for the length of the contract," Hourihan said.

The MCMUA signed a five-year deal with FCR Morris in January 2001 and sends the agency about 700 tons a month, Hourihan estimates. That adds up to about $126,000 a year.

But it's a favorable option, compared with paying $76 a ton for waste disposal, Hourihan adds.

Mount Olive Councilman Steven Rattner agrees, saying some governments are eliminating recycling because they're looking at it strictly from a financial perspective.

"It's shortsighted," he states.

"There is no cost avoidance. It costs $70 to $80 a ton to dump garbage, and if we stop recycling tonnage, the extra garbage has to be locked up. Do we have the staffing to do that?"

Vincent Pace, of Pace Glass, a Jersey City company that sells glass collected from Rockaway Township, said suspending glass recycling in this area would be counterproductive.

"Over the years we've had a problem moving it, but the key is to always cultivate new markets for it," he said.

Pace added that it would be more costly to go back to dumping the waste in landfills for two reasons: because many landfills have closed, and because so many states have mandatory recycling that the landfills couldn't absorb all the material out there.

So Pace and other companies export their glass.

Paul Smith, of the Container Recycling Alliance, said the outlook is increasingly good as new markets for green glass open up.

"We've been selling it to people in Europe, mostly in Spain, and there's interest in other markets," Smith said.

Last month, CRA shipped 18,500 metric tons to Spain, and approximately 70 percent of it came from New Jersey, he added.

Some have come with other uses for green glass.

Peluso said in Ocean County, for example, green glass is being used for road construction, as aggregate. Other municipalities have approved the use of glass in building construction for drainage systems.

"There's always another use for this material," Peluso said.