Efforts continue to move forward in bringing glass recycling to Macomb for McDonough County residents. Currently, 27.4 percent of the county’s residents have no access to any type of recycling and following a survey conducted by the University of Illinois Extension, 83 percent of the county said they would utilize a recycling facility. Horticulture Educator Chris Enroth explains the importance of glass recycling:
“The normal recycling where it is all co-mingled, you put all your recycling in this one bin. When we look at how that gets recycled, there can be some problems. First off, it has to be sorted and a lot of that is addressed through robotics sorting at the waste facilities; however, what we have found is that when it is co-mingled, there is a lot of contamination. It can even be contamination with two things that can be recycled. For instance, when glass shatters and it get embedded into cardboard, we know have two things that just get sent to the landfill because they don’t want to have to mess with extracting all that glass in the cardboard and so on and so forth. A lot of times, and when we think about the recycling market, things like glass, immediately just get sorted out of the recycling stream and sent to the landfill, even though it is infinitely recyclable.”
Enroth is hopeful glass recycling in McDonough County can begin in 2024.
Following is courtesy of the University of Illinois Extension
Efforts to bring glass recycling to Macomb has reached the next phase in the process. The Macomb Woman’s Club along with partners, University of Illinois Extension, Western Illinois Regional Council (WIRC), McDonough Health Department, Western Illinois University facilities management, and the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs have gained the support of Mayor Mike Inman to proceed with plan logistics.
How it would work. Residents drop off glass at a local site, when containers are full it would be moved to a local storage bunker where a recycling company, Ripple Glass, would pick it up to be recycled.
“We are pleased to have the support of Mayor Mike Inman and Western Illinois Regional Council (WIRC) Executive Director Roger Pavey as we move closer to writing a grant to establish a glass recycling site locally,” announced JoAnn Hairston-Jones, co-chair of the recycling effort.
“Currently, we are working on the budget which includes building a storage space for the glass. We also need an agreement on a collection site and establishing accounting costs along with other details. WIRC will write the grant which would pay for much of the cost.” Hairston-Jones explains.
Since 2009 Kansas City based company; Ripple Glass has specialized in glass recycling. To date they have recycled more than one billion bottles and jars and collect over 700 tons of glass each week. Recycled glass can become new bottles, insulation, counter tops and more. 714 recycled bottles can generate enough fiberglass to insulate the attic of an average home.
83 percent of McDonough County residents, in a recent survey, said they would use a recycling facility at least monthly. Presently, 27.4 percent of the county’s residents have no access to any type of recycling. Quincy and Iowa City are the closest drop off glass recycling sites to Macomb.
Benefits of recycling include protecting the environment and conserving landfill space, and most importantly creating jobs. Incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates one job; landfilling the same amount creates six jobs, but recycling creates 36 jobs.
