Tucson Finds End Market for Collected Glass

The city of Tucson, Ariz., has worked out an end market for its collected glass. The program could save the city as much as $80 per ton of glass collected.

The city’s vendor, Waste Management, which owns and operates the city’s MRF, will be shipping the commingled glass to Tucson Read Mix Inc., which will use the glass to make glassphalt.

According to spokesmen for the city, the program began in a pilot test phase several weeks ago, and began on a regular basis last week. Previous to the switch to using Tucson Ready Mix the city was paying $80 per ton to ship the glass to Los Angeles. With the new program the company will take the glass at no charge and blend it in to make the glass/asphalt mix.

According to local press reports, by weight, glass may account for a quarter of what is collected in city residents’ collection containers.

To make the program a success Waste Management purchased a glass crusher to pulverize the glass containers.

The city collects around 10,000 tons per year of glass. Through the program the city hopes to process and divert around 6,000 tons of glass.

One other advantage of the program is that with the city’s single-stream recycling program there is no need to sort out the different colors of glass containers, making the processing efforts much easier.