Silver City, NM - Glass collection for recycling will be discontinued effective July 1 for all Town of Silver City residents who have been recycling their glass as part of curbside recycling. The drop-off bins for glass at the landfill will also be removed. After July 1 glass will have to be disposed of with regular trash. This decision is based on a number of factors.
Over the past several years we have collected glass and tried to find a use for it. It is not being recycled anywhere in the region because there are no longer any glass manufacturers nearby. The best we could hope for was to repurpose it but there is no longer a local option for using the glass by crushing it for road construction. The company which had planned on doing this in Grant County has since decided not to. The nearest glass recycling option would be in Phoenix but that would be at a cost of $42,000 a year.
If there were a local use for glass it would have to be collected separately at a cost of about $27,000 a year. Glass crushers are also expensive, 100 - 250 thousand dollars and require additional money for operations. Santa Fe has also stopped collecting glass at curbside and is discontinuing use of their crusher due to high operational costs.
In the not too distant future the town will be automating the collection of single stream and cardboard using side-loading trucks and 65 gallon carts or 450 gallon tubs. This is the same approach that is used for collecting trash in Silver City. The single stream and cardboard collected cannot contain glass. The glass would get broken in these trucks and pose a safety hazard. It also creates problems for the processors that buy our collected and baled recycled materials. If we start having too much glass in our recycling they may reject the recycling or not pay us.
Sending glass to the landfill will not adversely affect the life of the landfill since it represents less than 1 % of the trash that goes into the landfill every year. Glass is inert so it will not harm the landfill. Paper and plastics can decompose in the landfill giving off methane and other greenhouse gases, so it is much better to recycle those.
To ensure your safety please dispose of glass in your trash receptacle. Place unbroken jars and bottles in your trash bag and set them in the trash cart. If you have broken glass it is best to put in a cardboard box so it doesn't cut through the trash bag as you are carrying to the trash cart. For additional information about recycling contact the Office of Sustainability at 575-519-8987.