Trumbull separating glass recycling to reduce contamination

TRUMBULL — Looking to reduce contamination, and its carbon footprint, the town is now asking residents to separate their glass from other recyclables and put them in a new “Glass Only” receptacle at its transfer station.

Trumbull is the latest town to join a regional pilot program aimed at shifting towns away from single stream recycling and toward recycling glass separately. Other towns participating in the pilot are Westport, Fairfield, Woodbridge and Milford.

“We're very excited to be participating in this pilot program and hope residents will join in recycling glass in this way to give it a second life,” said Mary Isaac, a member of Trumbull Town Council and a council representative with Sustainable Trumbull, a citizen-led group focused on making Trumbull more fiscally, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Officials also said recycling the glass separately will be turned into products, such as cement, which will reduce its carbon footprint.

According to the transfer station website, separating glass from other recyclables is preferable, because it keeps paper shreds, bottles caps and other debris from contaminating the glass. Conversely, it also prevents plastics and other recyclables from being contaminated by shards of broken glass.

“When you separate glass fro mm ixed recycling, each recycling stream is freed from contamination by the other, and the value for each recycled commodity improves,” the site reads.

The new bin was given a “soft launch” in April. Since then, 3.35 tons of material have been collected, said Trumbull Public Works Director George Estrada.

He said the town wanted to “solidify the signage and the messaging” before the program launched officially. “This is a more robust launch now,” Estrada said.

The bins have magnetic signs on them discouraging residents from putting plastic items in them. Estrada said this is because there had been some problems with that during the soft launch.

“We were seeing a couple of (plastic) milk bottles in there and that's not acceptable,” he said.

Items that will be accepted in the new bins include rinsed glass bottles, food jars, wine and liquor bottles. Mirrors, drinking glasses, redeemable glass and lightbulbs are among the items that won't be accepted. All items must be empty and rinsed and should not include caps lids or corks.

For details, visit www.trumbull-ct.gov/275/ Transfer-Station-Recycling -Center