NERC’s Glass Committee releases report on postconsumer glass used as ADC

The Northeast Recycling Council’s (NERC) Glass Committee has released a report titled “Recycled Glass Used as alternative daily cover (ADC) in the Northeast US & Quebec.” The report identifies a shortage of beneficiation facilities in the region to clean and process glass, making it necessary for material recovery facilities (MRFs) to send their separated postconsumer glass to landfills for use as ADC.  

The Glass Committee was formed in 2017 and its latest report is focused on understanding how postconsumer glass containers are used as ADC in 11 Northeast U.S. states and Quebec. The committee consists of 21 members, including representatives from five state waste authorities.   

Highlighted data 

Relying on data collected and volunteered by NERC’s member states and Quebec, this report highlights some key takeaways. Eighty-three percent of states surveyed require postconsumer glass to be recycled, and 25 percent already have postconsumer glass disposal bans. Seventy-five percent of participating jurisdictions report that postconsumer glass is used as ADC in landfills, even though 76 percent do not recognize ADC use as recycling. Five of the participating 11 U.S. states could not provide estimates on the tonnage of glass used as ADC, and most states also have slight variations in their definition of ADC. The report says most participants could improve transparency about what they do with postconsumer glass.  

Next steps 

Data collection for this report began in February this year, with NERC’s Assistant Director & Event Organizer Mary Ann Remolador leading the outreach, interpretation and drafting efforts. 

“One of the things we became acutely aware of is that states across the board may or may not be monitoring the use of glass for ADC, and we were not aware of that before doing this,” Remolador says. “In many cases, states are not requiring the MRFs to report where they are sending the glass that comes out of their facility. 

“There's no formal decisions that were made by the states as to how they were going to change things,” she adds. “But I think they became very aware of what needs to happen in the future around reporting of the ADC glass. For some, it may also be becoming more diligent about implementing their disposal ban of glass or changing their ADC specs so that glass could not be used.” 

While state legislation comprises an important step toward improving glass circularity in the Northeast and Quebec, Remolador adds that the quality of glass coming out of MRFs has room for improvement. She explains that the stage during which glass is removed from the recycling stream impacts its cleanliness: The longer the glass stays in the stream, the more contaminated it will be. A study conducted by NERC some years ago found that most Northeast MRFs do not remove the glass until much later in the process. To that effect, Remolador says investments are needed in MRFs to retrofit their equipment to allow them to cycle out glass much sooner. 

Demystifying glass recycling 

This report follows a model bill drafted by the Glass Committee earlier this year that states could use in building postconsumer glass markets. The model bill requires manufacturers to use a certain percentage of postconsumer glass in their bottles, containers or fiberglass, which Remolador says prompted the committee to understand the supply of glass being used as ADC instead of making its way back to the marketplace.  

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“We know about the bottle bill glass—that's very well-documented,” she says. “That glass flows right into the marketplace without any problem. But this other glass, the MRF glass, or the nonbottle bill glass, is the one that is less known.  

“What we wanted to do was see just how much [glass] wasn't even being made available to the marketplace,” Remolador continues. "Some will argue that using it as an alternative daily cover is in itself a marketplace. ... Our argument is that glass has value and can be used in making new products. Overall a better use of it is not to bury it in the ground: There are more environmental benefits to using it when making new products because then we displace the use of virgin materials in making those products with the postconsumer glass.” 

Remolador says the Glass Committee created the questions that participants responded to. She then served as the primary liaison between the Glass Committee and the various offices responsible for monitoring landfill data in each state. Remolador highlights that some states might interpret the questions or relevant answers differently from each other, which makes her task of clarifying and acquiring comparable data especially important. Despite the challenges of the process, Remolador adds that participants were supportive of the study because they are all a part of NERC’s network. 

“When you contact a state saying NERC's Glass Committee is working on this, states know other states are involved in this, and they are very willing to be part of the study,” Remolador says. “I think what makes it harder is not all states are tracking the information.  

“So, there were some states trying to get as much information as possible, even though they weren't formally tracking the information,” she says. “That network that NERC has developed over our 36 years of existing helps when you're trying to do a project like this.” 

From her years of experience in the field, Remolador concludes the recycled glass industry is a mystery for many people. She explains that the information often is not readily available, and the work of the Glass Committee over the past several years has involved finding relevant data and piecing together a holistic picture.