Recycling center receiving fewer tons since end curbside pickup
20 fewer tons collected; residents trucking items to drop-off locations
The Buckman Road recycling center took in 20 fewer tons of glass from the city in the three weeks after Santa Fe stopped nearly all residential pickup of glass for recycling, the executive director of the Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency said.
Agency head Randall Kippenbrock said Friday it’s too early to draw conclusions from the reduction in glass for recycling, but said he believes the city’s changes in March to its recycling program are behind the decrease.
City residents now have to take glass to four drop-off locations if they want it recycled. All glass from the drop-off sites goes to the recycling center, which also receives glass hauled from businesses and some residents in the city.
Less glass for recycling means more glass is going into the Caja del Rio Landfill through the waste stream. It can cost millions to blast basalt to make more room for waste and shorten the lifespan of the dump.
Santa Fe city and county residents and businesses typically produce about 150,000 tons of landfill waste a year.
The Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency is a joint citycounty operation that operates the landfill, in addition to the Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station.
Shirlene Sitton, director of the city’s Environmental Services Division, told city councilors last week that more than 10,000 pounds of glass had been collected at three drop-off sites since they were opened last month. Sitton’s figure didn’t include glass taken to the Buckman Road facility, which is the fourth drop-off location for city residents.
According to Kippenbrock, 63.3 tons of glass from the city were taken in by the Buckman recycling center from March 13 to Thursday, compared to 83.5 tons from Feb. 20 to March 12.
Adam Schlachter, a spokesman for the city’s Environmental Services Division, which made the changes to curbside recycling service, questioned whether the numbers provide an apples-to-apples comparison.
Schlachter said the city opened the glass drop-off site on Siler Road on March 7 and the other two new dropoff locations about 1½ weeks later. He said the Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency data doesn’t break down what’s residential and what’s commercial recycling, and he said the city continues curbside service for
glass in a few residential areas.
“It’s just too soon to really be comparative,” Schlachter said.
The city sends trucks to pick up the glass loads separately, and officials will have a more accurate tonnage on how much glass is collected at the drop-off sites once the city ends curbside glass pickup, he said.
The city in 2016 produced 1,558 tons of glass for recycling. If the trend in less recycled glass continues, it would mean a 22 percent annual reduction, or more than 300 fewer tons of glass for recycling in a year.
The Buckman center grinds up recycled glass into a sandlike material. What it can’t sell is used as lining for new cells at the landfill. The state Environment Department requires such lining to help prevent contaminated water from leeching into the ground, and Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency was the first in New Mexico to think of repurposing glass for lining.
At the glass drop-off site on Siler Road last week, city residents expressed a sense of civic duty in hauling wine and beer bottles and other glass to the location.
Hugo Steensma, 77, who lives off Old Pecos Trail, had enough glass to fill one of the city’s old blue 14-gallon recycling bins. Steensma said he has no problem with hauling glass because of the dangers to city workers who handled it.
As Steensma slid each glass container through the slot of the city’s receptacle, it shattered into the heap.
Schlachter said the receptacles have closed lids to combat illegal dumping. Such contamination creates problems for workers at the Buckman Road recycling center, who would have to sort out the mess by hand or trash it. The glass drop-off receptacle at Buckman Road is the only one with an open top.
Ada Browne, 70, drove up to the Siler Road site with about half a bin of glass.
Browne said she and her neighbors on Kathryn Place have discussed a rotating schedule to haul glass produced by the block, whose residents include a woman who does not drive.