Salt Lake City has offered curbside glass recycling for almost three years. Now the service is debuting in a few county neighborhoods, where recycling glass has meant a trip to those big recycling bins scattered in parking lots around the valley.
That’s beginning to change with a new program launched this week by the Wasatch Front Waste & Recycling District that’s brought curbside glass recycling pickup to 70 residents in the Canyon Rim and Emigration Canyon neighborhoods.
“The way it works for the resident is they will once a month put their gray glass recycling bin out just like they do with all of their normal carts,” says Jeff Summerhays, the recycling district’s sustainability coordinator.
He says the district’s corporate partner, Momentum Recycling, will send out reminders before picking up the 36-gallon barrels on a set day each month. The initial cost is $45 for the barrel, then $8 a month for pickup service.
If you eat lots of food packed in glass or drink lots of glass-bottled beverages, Summerhays says, “then this is for you. And this is something that will hopefully help divert stuff from the landfill.”
Those parking lot glass-recycling containers fill up with about 1.6 million pounds of glass each year.
Customers have been clamoring for the convenience of curbside service. And, if enough people sign up, he says, curbside pickups will expand to Cottonwood Heights and Holladay next spring, and eventually beyond the East Side.
