Dive summary:
- Momentum Recycling is trying to tackle Utah’s staggeringly low 4% glass recycling rate by opening up a new glass processing facility in Wasatch, Utah.
- In the past, numerous recyclers have been unable to sustain glass-recycling operations because of the intricacy of recycling glass and cheap landfill tipping fees.
- Momentum says they hope to stay around and bring recycling rates to competitive rates by finding more diverse end markets for the glass.
From the article:
"Glass kept coming up over and over again as a problem area in our community, that glass was difficult to recycle," said John Lair, co-founder and CEO. "So we started investigating the causes of that and along the way realized that our community needed a new glass processing facility ... and we decided to do it."
Glass is a notoriously difficult material to handle for recycling. Broken glass can cause harm to workers; it's heavy and expensive to transport; and many end-users require the glass to be sorted by color, a time-intensive process. ...