Pocatello’s glass recycling program seeing success after first four months

Just under four months ago, the City of Pocatello started its new glass recycling program. So far, it’s seeing success with the program.

“Since we’ve started it, it has been going awesome,” said Debbie Brady, recycling coordinator for the city. “The community has really grasped the idea of recycling glass.”

“We just sent our first load out yesterday and we sent 34 tons – and that’s just since June,” Brady added. “We average about 11 tons a month so it’s been going really, really well.”

The city is working with Momentum, a company out of Salt Lake City. Brady said it was actually Momentum who approached the city about doing this program. She said the city felt it was a good fit.

Here’s how the process works: the city collects the glass, stores it in the bunker until it hits 30 to 40 tons, then Momentum pays to have it shipped to them, where it’s turned into things like fiberglass or sand blasting materials.

“Glass is heavy and so it’s expensive to ship,” Brady explained. “So that’s why we’ve never really looked into this program and it’s $29 per ton to dispose of up at the landfill.”

So this process saves Pocatello city on landfill costs and clutter.

Right now, the city has ten glass recycling bins placed throughout the city. But Brady said with the success of the program, they might need to add more.

“I would love to add more bins,” she said. “Because city hall and Albertson’s, they are constantly full so we ended up putting two at Albertson’s because we had such a response so yeah, the more we can put out, the better.”

Brady also added that so far, there has been no contamination with the recycling program either.

All glass can be recycled except Pyrex, light bulbs and ceramics. To find out where the nearest glass recycling bin is, check out this page at Pocatello city.