Glass recycling service looking to expand

Special to the Post

Over the past decade the recycling and waste diversion programs within West Yellowhead has expanded and evolved. In 2015 the communities of Edson, Hinton, Yellowhead County and Jasper recycling collected over 3,000 metric tonnes (6,600,000 lbs.) of recycled materials every year! This is equal to shipping approximately 150 trailer loads.

Over the past year the communities, through the West Yellowhead Landfill Authority, adopted a regional approach for collection and marketing of recycled materials. This spring, our region took advantage of this marketing strategy and we were successfully able to market 40 metric tonnes of glass from across the region! Prior to this, Jasper had not been able to access a market for their recycled glass for nearly 10 years. This opportunity was economically viable because the four communities were able to consolidate the materials at two collection points and were able to fulfill the mandatory shipping weight requirement.

Over the past 5 to 10 years North American municipalities have faced challenges with marketing recycled glass. Over the past few years there has seen a trend towards lower market demand for recycled glass. As more and more of the products used by the packaging industry have evolved from tin and glass to plastics, the marketing of recycled glass has become challenging, if not impossible, for municipally ran recycling collection programs.

Generally collected recycled glass finds its way into one of three main recycling streams: Fibre Glass insulation, beads to help mark highway lines and glass beverage containers. The Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation fills most of the demand for recycled glass by the beverage industry. Some larger communities (Calgary) overcame the low demand by providing recycled glass as an aggregate replacement in road construction.

United Concrete and Gravel of Quesnel, BC, through its Enviro-Grit Abrasives and Enviro-Corp. Recycling divisions, offers a market for scrap glass that gives hope to Alberta municipalities who have been suffering from a lack of viable markets for their glass for years.

Recycled glass offers several advantages compared to traditional blasting abrasives. This product has a similar cleaning rate, is non-flammable, is crystalline silica free, is non-corrosive, and is inert. As well, this product is mindful of the environment, consisting of no harmful materials. Overall this material successfully aids contractors in much of the challenging pre-blasting preparations. In addition, this recycled product addresses the human and environmental health concerns associated with competing virgin products.

In late 2013 the company started servicing a small number of Alberta municipalities on a test basis. Edson was one of the first communities to approach United Concrete to see if this type recycling could be feasible. The test provided to be very successful and therefore United Concrete is now looking to expand its service to other communities in the province.

We look forward to marketing additional items regionally to build on our successes.

For more information on this particular topic or any recycling/waste reduction questions please call 780- 8651411 or 780-723-1603

Submitted by Janai Redman, Dallas Cartwright and Anne Auriat