Photo: Leaning into gale force winds, those attending the NK Waste & Recycling Glass Bunker open house include: Carolyn Hall, Sarah Joy, Dean Jacobs, Rod Stolcpart, Dorine Campbell, Kalli Kieborz, Kim Burge, Lauren Hershey-Henry from Ripple Glass, Mike Burge. Neil Westcott cutting the ribbon, Karen Phillips, Billie Wescott Whiting, Cindy Wescott and Nadeane Allard.
Oct 5, 2018: The Open House and Ribbon Cutting for glass recycling is in the books. This marks the beginning. Glass is heavy and takes a lot of room. Now, in the Valentine area, we have systems in place to keep glass out of the dead end landfill. Instead we can move it forward to serve its next purpose.
NC RC&D announces NK Waste and Recycling of Valentine NE is accepting glass at their recycling center in Valentine. Along with the bins of paper and tin and other recyclables, there is now a container for glass.
“Glass recycling is available because we have found a market for the glass,” comments Neil Wescott of NK Waste & Recycling. “It has been quite a while since there has been anyone accepting glass. Learning about Ripple Glass opened this opportunity.
“It was one year ago this week,” comments NC RC&D Ex Dir Kim Burge, “that I attended the Nebraska Recycling Council’s annual event. At this event, I learned about Boulevard Beer’s program to recycle glass through their newly formed company- Ripple Glass of Kansas City MS. Opening 4 years ago, Ripple Glass sorts the incoming glass, using the amber colored glass for more bottles. The rest goes to Owens-Corning to make that pink insulation.”
NC RC&D assisted NK Waste & Recycling in applying for a grant to offset the building cost of a glass bunker at their recycling site. NK Waste & Recycling was awarded the grant funding through the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund.
This is the second grant received for glass recycling with assistance from the NC RC&D. The first grant received was from the Ne DEQ this summer for Bristow. Their bunker is set to be ready for glass in November. Plus there is conversation about 2 more glass recycling programs opening in the 6 counties served by the RC&D.
It is vital to follow the rules when recycling. We can toss a plastic bag full of clean tin cans into the tin recycling bin and think we did a great job. Most everyone would agree- Job well done. But there is one error that can cause that full bag of tins to go to the landfill because of contamination.
When guessing what the contamination is, people often guess the labels on the cans. No, it is the bag that contained it all. Always dump your recyclables out of the container into the bin. Those plastic or paper bags contaminate a huge volume of materials that could have been recycled.
Comments Kim B, ”Always remember to EMPTY your container into the correct bin, then put the container in its right bin! A paper bag can’t go in with the tin. A plastic sack can’t go in with the plastics number 1 or 2. It is good for people to know this because we think we are doing good and end up messing it up in the last step.”
Types of glass accepted Not accepted:
Glass food and beverage containers No windshields
All colors. No sorting required No ceramic, porcelain or milk glass
Labels can remain on the glass No caps, boxes or bags.
Glassware, such as wine or pint glasses No laminated glass
Plate glass when pre-approved by Ripple-all No mirrors
hardware, framing casings and spacers must be removed.