Glass goes NEXT to the CURBY cart
Set your glass containers out in a 2 to 5 gallon bucket next to your CURBY cart.
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Glass breaks easily and poses a danger to your collector and the workers that sort the material for recycling. Keeping glass separate helps everyone stay safe. |
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What to include:
- Food jars (salsa, spaghetti jars, pickle jars, baby food jars, etc.)
- Beverage containers (juice bottles, wine bottles, beer bottles, etc.)
- All colors of glass are accepted and can be placed in the same 2 to 5 gallon bucket.
- Labels are fine, but please remove the lids
What to leave out:
Glass items not accepted for recycling should be wrapped in paper, placed in a bag and set out in the GARBY cart for collection.
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Dishware (glasses, plates, platters, etc.)
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Window glass
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Mirrored glass
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Ceramics
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Pyrex or CorningWare
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The combination of ingredients used to make glassware, windows, and mirrors is different from what goes into container glass for bottles and jars. If these two types of glass are recycled together, the resulting glass will not be suitable for container glass. |
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What happens to it?
Glass collected in Cedar Rapids goes to Kansas City to a company called Ripple Glass. Ripple Glass was started by the Boulevard Brewing Company, frustrated that their bottles were being thrown in the landfill. Ripple constructed a state-of-the-art processing plant and started collecting glass. The collected glass goes to a local Kansas City customer that converts the recycled glass into fiberglass insulation, saving enormous amounts of energy and dramatically lowering emissions. They even found a business in Tulsa that turns amber glass back into bottles, including those used by Boulevard!
How does recycling glass make a difference?
- Using recycled glass produces 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than creating new glass (or fiberglass) from raw materials.
- Every ton of glass that’s recycled results in more than one ton of raw materials saved. That’s 1,300 lbs. of sand, 410 lbs. of soda ash, 380 lbs. of limestone, and 150 lbs. of feldspar.
- Recycling just one glass bottle saves enough electricity to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. (Imagine how long it would light a compact fluorescent!)
- A six-pack of recycled beer bottles produces enough fiberglass insulation to fill a standard wall cavity.
