Mixed Glass As Roadbed Violates State's Mandates

It seemed like a good solution to the growing problem of mixed green, brown and clear container glass piling up at a Glenwood recycling yard.

Ecosort, the company that takes in and markets most of the curbside recyclables gathered in the Eugene-Springfield area, hauled an unknown number of loads of unsorted glass to a north Eugene gravel pit that found a new use for the crushed bottles and jars.

Delta Sand & Gravel spread the material on the roads leading into its construction-demolition landfill to improve traction for the big equipment that moves in and out of the pit and sometimes gets stuck in the mud.

Technically a violation of the state's recycling rules, this had been going on for one to two years. But the state Department of Environmental Quality learned about it in late March and put a halt to the practice.

"It was being used in somewhat of a beneficial manner," said Brian Fuller, waste reduction analyst in the DEQ's Eugene office. "It's not like they were dumping it over the side into a hole. However, it's not the highest and best use for that material."

Roadbed can be a permissible use for mixed glass, but not where the roadway eventually will be submerged in the landfill itself, as will occur at Delta some day.

Fuller sent Ecosort a notice of noncompliance, but the company had halted the practice already, manager Richard Ritz said.

"The issue has been taken care of," Ritz said. "It will never happen again, I guarantee you."

Now Ecosort transports the mixed glass by truck to Portland recycler Strategic Materials, which loads it onto boxcars bound for California's fiberglass industry.

"That's where my last 90 tons of glass went," Ritz said.

The mixed glass came from the commercial side of curbside recycling - restaurants, bars and apartment complexes. Those customers often don't sort glass by color, and the loads get delivered to Ecosort as mixed batches not suited for making new bottles.

Mixed glass became a bigger headache for Ecosort as the volume of it increased in the past year. In 2002, the company handled 1,300 tons of mixed glass, or 68 percent of all the container glass it took in from both residential and commercial routes. That was up sharply from 2001, when it collected 716 tons of mixed glass, or 33 percent of the total.

While the bulk of mixed glass comes from the commercial sector, more mixed glass has come off residential collection routes in the past year because some recycling truck drivers weren't sorting the glass at the curb, said John Hire, general manager of Sanipac.

Some saw the large pile of mixed glass at Ecosort and figured they, too, could deliver their loads mixed rather than sorted, saving them time, Hire said.

Others simply took all the broken and unseparated glass they encountered and dumped it in the mixed pile instead of leaving it at the curb with a note explaining why they rejected it, he said.

"They were mistakenly starting to mix their glass on residential routes," he said. "That can't happen."

Sanipac, owned by the Pape family, reminded its drivers recently that they must toss green, brown and clear containers into the separate bins on their trucks while collecting from residential customers, Hire said.

Glass from commercial routes, however, still is collected mixed and delivered to Ecosort, which the Pape family co-owns with Willamette Resources. (Oregon) Register-Guard