Smithtown researches places to sell recycled glass
Town residents utilize glass recycling bins at the Smithtown Town Hall, Jan. 29, 2019. The town has has renewed its agreement with Brookhaven to take Smithtown's glass recyclables.
Smithtown will continue to send used glass to Brookhaven under an intermunicipal agreement, but the town’s waste management office is looking for other destinations for the material.
“The hope is that the economics will enable the development of a larger-scale manufacturing operation that could accept the material as a feedstock,” said Russell Barnett, Smithtown’s top solid waste official. “We are calling around to everybody we can identify.”
Smithtown stopped curbside glass recycling late last year when it replaced single stream recycling with a dual stream program that alternates between mixed paper and plastic and metal pickups. Residents can throw out glass or drop it off for recycling at the Municipal Services Facility, town hall or the highway department.
The town pays Brookhaven $18 per ton to accept that glass. Brookhaven breaks it up and uses it as a substitute for gravel or sand to cover its landfill. The Smithtown Town Board approved the one-year renewal with Brookhaven on Jan. 24.
Brookhaven Supervisor Edward Romaine earlier in January announced a deal with Jersey City-based Pace Glass Recycling to take some of that town’s glass. Brookhaven does not pay or get paid for the glass but pays for trucking in an arrangement that is “still developing,” a Brookhaven town spokesman said in an email.
Barnett said he was not yet able to tell how much glass Smithtown residents are recycling. In 2014, the last time the town used dual stream recycling, residents recycled 1,325 tons of glass, he said.
While there are industrial uses for used glass — particularly when it is sorted by color — they are usually too small to provide long-term solutions for municipalities, Barnett said. “The volumes we’re talking about usually far outstrip the ability of small operators to make a meaningful reduction in the material.”
In coming weeks, Barnett said, Smithtown will replace the 55-gallon drums that have been in use to collect glass for the past several weeks with larger, dedicated collection bins.
Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.
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