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Papillion Sanitation is shaking up the household recycling market in the Omaha area by allowing some of its customers to put glass bottles in the same bins with aluminum, tin, paper and plastics.
Firstar Fiber, the metro area's main processor, doesn't accept glass in curbside recycling bins. The company says glass breaks and can cut workers, it makes processing more complicated and expensive, and the market for recycled glass is minimal.
But Papillion Sanitation, which has contracted for the new service with Millennium Recycling Inc. of Sioux Falls, S.D., a competitor of Firstar Fiber, contends that glass can be handled safely and that the company is responding to consumer demand.
The new service applies only to homeowners in cities such as Papillion and La Vista who pay the company to collect their garbage and recyclables. It doesn't apply to people who receive collection as part of their tax-supported city services.
Erica Johnson, a spokeswoman for Papillion Sanitation, said the company also is talking with officials of Bellevue and Ralston, where the company has citywide garbage collection contracts, about accepting glass.
“We've gotten a lot of calls from Omaha residents, too, interested in the program,” she said.
The Cities of Omaha, Bellevue and Ralston don't accept glass. They provide garbage collection to residents as part of their regular city services, and they contract with independent haulers for curbside collection of garbage and recyclables.
Homeowners in La Vista, Papillion, Springfield, Gretna, Blair and outlying sanitary and improvement districts, on the other hand, must select their own garbage and recycling haulers and pay a monthly fee.
Deffenbaugh Industries serves the City of Omaha, but Bellevue and Ralston use Papillion Sanitation. All of that recyclable material is delivered to Firstar Fiber, and Dale Gubbels, CEO of Firstar, worries that people across the Omaha area, including in Bellevue and Ralston, will become confused and start putting glass in their bins.
“We've already started receiving more glass,” Gubbels said.
Bellevue City Councilman Don Preister said some of his constituents are confused about what is acceptable in the bins and what isn't. Residents don't understand that even though Papillion Sanitation picks up their trash, they can't put glass in their recycling bins, he said last week.
Papillion Sanitation, which is part of California-based Waste Connections Inc., began accepting glass this month from about 13,000 of its subscription customers.
Firstar Fiber offered to process Papillion Sanitation's collections, for an additional $50 per ton to offset added risks and costs, Gubbels said. But Johnson said her company instead found a processor that “would treat glass as a commodity,” not a contaminant.
Intermingling glass might be unusual in the Omaha area, but it isn't nationwide.
Susan Collins, executive director of the Container Recycling Institute in California, said many recycling systems accept glass. Careful collection and sorting can resolve many problems with glass, she said.
“I would never say don't collect materials,” Collins said.
According to a study released last year by the American Beverage Association, about 51 percent of people can include glass in their curbside recycling programs that mix all recyclable items together in one bin, called “single-stream” collection systems. About 9 percent have single-stream systems that exclude glass, the survey indicated.
Gubbels said about 40 percent of recycled glass in single-stream systems gets broken into bits so small it's thrown away.
“Everyone likes the idea of recycling the glass. But it will end up as trash.”
Firstar Fiber has four special glass drop-off sites around Omaha.
Jake Anderson, owner of Millennium Recycling, said he purchased special conveyor belts and screens to sift out glass. Workers don't get cut, he said, and Millennium Recycling has found companies that use virtually all the collected glass.
Firstar Fiber isn't the only company that stands to lose business because of Papillion Sanitation's decision to accept glass.
“They're trying to lure customers,” said Ken Harpenau, owner of Gretna Sanitation, which also doesn't accept glass.
Harpenau said he doubts shipping recyclable material some 180 miles to Sioux Falls will be cost-effective.
The World-Herald News Service contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
444-1117, joe.ruff@owh.com
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