Walla Walla's BIG Recyclers diverts 1M pounds of glass from landfills

Operating the forklift, Greg Willmarth lifts a pick bin and tips it over a blue-green storage container that can hold up to eight tons of glass. Wine bottles with white labels cascade out of the pick bin, twisting and landing with a cacophony.

The sound rings out as other volunteers wearing fluorescent safety vests pull boxes of glass from vehicles lined up at the weekly glass drop-off in the Airport District. Each box is emptied into a pick bin, and the cycle continues.

The drop-off area lined with flags is where the process of glass recycling begins in Walla Walla.

Glass can be recycled endlessly, with no loss in quality or purity, but the cost is prohibitive, especially in rural areas.

"The only way to truly recycle glass is to get it to a glass manufacturer, and right now the only glass manufacturer is in the Portland area," said Willmarth, former board member and volunteer with BIG Recyclers.

The glass must change hands several times to make it from consumers - wineries, restaurants or residents - to a manufacturer that will melt the glass down and use it to make a new product. Moving material as heavy as glass is costly.

But the transfer from car trunk to bin to container - facilitated by BIG Recyclers - is part of a hub-spoke model that has successfully diverted more than 1 million pounds of glass from the local landfill.

"We're here to prove that this is economically sustainable in eastern Washington," Willmarth said.

"Symbiotic"

BIG Recyclers in Walla Walla hit the 1-million pound mark in early May. That milestone came about three years after it started piloting a hub-spoke model of glass collection in a partnership with the Glass Packaging Institute.

The model allows the local "spoke" to collect glass and aggregate it over time. The aggregated glass is stored in a Pasco "hub," where it is combined with glass collected at other spokes and eventually transported by Portland-based Glass to Glass, which delivers the glass to end-use manufacturers.

Glass to Glass makes the cycle work, footing the transportation costs that would otherwise fall on a municipality like Walla Walla - which hasn't had glass recycling since 2012 primarily because of the cost - or a small organization like BIG Recyclers.

"They have been one of the linchpins in the success of BIG Recyclers. Without their expertise, we would not have the means of getting our glass to end-use manufacturers," said Chris Lueck, one of the founders of BIG Recyclers. "This has been the greatest financial hurdle for rural municipalities to overcome."

The amassed resources make the process economical for Glass to Glass. While it took BIG Recyclers just under three years to collect 1 million pounds of glass, Glass to Glass moves 1 million tons in a week.

Recycling glass prevents it from ending up in landfills, preserves natural resources and cuts down on carbon emissions, according to the Glass Packaging Institute. It also reduces costs for manufacturers.

"For them in manufacturing, a ton of recycled glass offsets a ton-and-a-half of raw material, so it's very valuable to them to be able to save costs," Willmarth said. "It's symbiotic, the way we work with them."

Lueck and Willmarth see their work as an opportunity to educate consumers about glass recycling practices before mandatory residential curbside glass recycling - paid for by glass manufacturers under a new Washington law - starts in 2030.

The hub-spoke model will still be needed then, though.

"The commercial glass from tasting rooms, bars and restaurants is not included under this new law," Lueck said. "That glass is more than 65% of our current weekly volume, so there is still a great need for small projects like BIG Recyclers to address that gap."

How it works

Walla Walla area residents and businesses who want to recycle glass pay a membership fee or a per-pound rate to recycle through BIG Recyclers. The membership fees cover equipment and storage costs and transportation from Walla Walla to the hub in Pasco.

Glass to Glass and manufacturer Owens-Illinois handle all the costs beyond that.

From Portland, clear glass is transported to Kalama, Washington, where it is used to make new glass bottles and jars.

Green and amber glass is transported by rail to Colorado, where another Owens-Illinois facility uses it to make amber glass bottles for regional customers, including the Anheuser-Busch brewery and green glass wine bottles.

There are some limitations on the project. BIG Recyclers would not function without the support of those two larger partners, Lueck said.

The system is also reliant on trucking for regional transit, and the carbon footprint of transporting the glass is a concern. Rail transport is only financially feasible for loads exceeding 1,000 tons, Lueck said.

But since the model has been implemented, glass collection has only grown in Walla Walla.

"We're running a startup, and we have to do a lot to maintain our growth," Willmarth said. "When we first started, we were only running one lane. Cars would be backed up down the street, and then wineries would come with big trucks, and we didn't know where to put them."

With each challenge that came up, the process was adjusted or improved, he said.

The weekly drop-off now operates with two lanes for two hours every Tuesday. The organization recently tested a Saturday drop-off and has also been branching into community drop-off events hosted at wineries and preparing a pilot for downtown pick-up. The whole operation is run by volunteers.

Stacey Haefele, co-owner of Foolhardy Vintners, pulled up in her car with nearly a hundred pounds of glass on Tuesday, May 26. She said she appreciates the work the organization is doing because she knows that the glass is getting recycled properly.

"You can recycle glass forever," Haefele said. "It's a shame to send it to the landfill."

"Getting the wineries involved is the real key because obviously they have the weight," Willmarth said, "but we also are trying to educate a lot of the consumers because of the fact that that new law will come into effect."

Yakima is currently the only other active spoke in the model, but BIG Recyclers is working with other recyclers in the region to expand the use of that Pasco storage location.

"To collect and aggregate glass locally/regionally is fairly easy and affordable," Lueck said. "To get it to end-use manufacturers requires lots of local, regional and national players to work collaboratively for best end solutions. … Every bottle, every jar, every person's effort adds up and over time, something wonderful occurs."

Photographer Kezia Setyawan contributed reporting to this article.

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