My City Stopped Accepting Glass for Recycling. Here Are My Thoughts.

This post first appeared in our weekly Make Waves Mondays email series on October 21, 2024.

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I never thought I’d live in a city that doesn’t recycle glass.

And yet, that’s the reality I’m living in right now, and…ya girl has some thoughts.

The backstory:

About a month ago, the city of Tacoma announced that, effective immediately, all collected glass would be sent to landfill. 

Apparently, there have been some “unexpected changes in the international glass market,” causing the vendor that the city works with to recycle the glass it collects to stop accepting glass altogether.

Theoretically - and hopefully - this is a temporary issue. But there’s no public timeline for how long it’ll take to find a new vendor or other solution.

The city is also still recommending that we continue to use the glass drop-off facilities available to us around the city during this time. (Backstory to the backstory: Tacoma eliminated curbside glass recycling in 2021, so all glass needs to be dropped off at the recycling center or at one of five drop-off stations throughout the city.)

So after about a month of this so far, these are my thoughts and musings, as someone who has built their entire life around sustainable products and services, and spends a lot of time researching and advocating for proper recycling.

Recycling makes us feel good.

I’ve said this before and I will say it again…recycling makes us feel good.

We get the warm and fuzzies when we put something in our recycling bin versus the trash can.

This notion is actually backed by science. Our brains so badly want to do the right thing, that we’ll actually consume more when we believe we can recycle because we feel good about it.

But what happens when the option to recycle is gone?

Because I live in an apartment that doesn’t have recycling or compost pickup, I take a weekly trip to Tacoma’s recycling center to drop off all of my recycling and compost for the week. 

But since the city has stopped recycling glass, I haven’t stopped taking my glass. I still load up my car and put the empty glass bottles in the glass bin at the recycling center - knowing full well they’re going to landfill.

Why?

Because I can’t get myself to just put glass in the trash can.

I can’t do it. I feel better taking it to the recycling center and putting it in the dedicated glass recycling bin, even though I KNOW it’s going to the landfill. I know this. And yet, I feel better about myself and my choices when I take the extra step to put them in the recycling bin.

Recycling makes us feel good.

(And this is also why wishcycling is such a problem…)

Recycling is a business.

It’s easy to forget that at its core, recycling is a business.

The people collecting our recycling are not the same ones actually turning recycled materials into new products.

Historically, most of the United States (and many other western countries) sent its recycling to China. But in 2018 China took a stand and stopped accepting any recycling above a 1% contamination rate.

For reference, the average contamination rate is about 25%.

This meant that most municipalities in the States had to find new vendors to buy their recycling, and many stopped offering recycling services altogether.

And now we’re getting a little taste of that again.

When there’s no one to buy the recycling, where does it go?

Who’s really responsible for recycling?

Lemme ask you this… Who would you say is responsible for recycling? 

Cities?
Manufacturers?
Individuals?

If you read the comments on the city of Tacoma’s social media post announcing the change to glass recycling, you’ll quickly notice that most people seem to lean towards it being the city’s responsibility.

If you look at manufacturers, you’ll notice they seem to believe it’s our responsibility as individuals.

Meanwhile, our cities are just trying to keep up while manufacturers keep producing and we keep tossing.

It’s a broken system full of passing the buck off to someone else.

I watch this NPR video at least once a year and every single time I get something new out of it. It’s an incredible look at why recycling is so difficult in the States and who is really responsible for making the system work. It’s about 15 minutes long and I highly recommend it. 👇

Closed-loop is the way forward.

When I poured my coffee this morning, I was so grateful for the local dairy that sells half and half in a glass bottle that I can return to the store to be reused again and again.

Just this weekend, I returned 9 five-gallon buckets and 9 one-gallon jugs to our local vendor to reuse again and again for our laundry detergent, dishwasher pods, shampoo, dish soap, and more.

So far this year, our EcoWarriors have returned 485 empty jars and bottles to A Drop in the Ocean to be reused again and again for their everyday essentials.

There is not one doubt in my mind that this closed-loop, circular design is the model we need to return to for everything.

A report by the UN earlier this year found that solid waste generation is expected to increase from 2.1 billion tonnes per year in 2023 to 3.8 billion tonnes per year by 2050 - and is expected to cost $640.3 billion…per year.

But get this.

If we could adopt a circular economy, eliminating waste before it’s even created, incorporating sustainable business practices, and fully managing our waste, we could actually see a net GAIN of $108.5 billion per year.

More on this to come in a future blog post 😉

Creating a more sustainable future is possible, and we have the tools and resources and knowledge to make it happen.

And if we can, it won’t just be good for the planet - it’ll save us nearly a trillion dollars every single year.

Does it suck right now that my wine bottles are going to landfill when we’re in a sand shortage? Yes. Yes it does. (Thank goodness we just did a deep dive a couple of months ago on wine vs. beer and discovered that boxed wine is actually the most sustainable option right now 😅)

But glass is an incredibly valuable resource and should be treated as such.

I don’t have a great way to wrap up this Make Waves Monday… I don’t have a solution that’ll fix everything overnight. I don’t know another glass vendor for our city to work with.

But I will say this, in general:

🌎 Buy less.

🌎 Support companies taking responsibility for their waste. (Hello! 👋)

🌎 Make a plan to vote on November 5th, and vote for candidates who believe in science and will fight to create a more sustainable future for all living things.

All my best,

Krystina

P.S. Anyone else find it incredibly ironic that last year I wrote a whole blog post about why recycling glass is sometimes better than reusing it? 😂

Note: As of early January 2025, the city of Tacoma has found a new recycling partner and glass recycling has resumed!