PORT TOWNSEND — Glass collection will resume at two Jefferson County locations starting Tuesday.
One will be the county transfer station off Jacob Miller Road at 325 County Landfill Road, Port Townsend. The other will be at the Quilcene Rural Drop Box just south of the U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station at 295312 U.S. Highway 101, Quilcene.
“Our solid waste team has been working really hard to get glass recycling back,” county commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said after she announced the program’s return at Monday’s board meeting.
The county shut down the program when Seattle-based company Strategic Materials Incorporated stopped accepting glass from area cities and counties last October, according to a public works post on the county’s website. The new owner, Sibelco, has resumed accepting glass.
“With new ownership and improved rail service, recycled glass will now be delivered to secondary markets outside of Washington through the Seattle intermediary, Sibelco, a multinational mining and materials corporation,” the post said.
The two locations were chosen because they are staffed, and staffed locations have proven to be less contaminated, Eisenhour said.
“We chose these two staffed sites for glass drop-off to lower the rate of contamination in order to gain a higher commodity value and reduce the cost of the overall recycling program,” said Al Cairns, the county’s solid waste manager, in a press release. “Unstaffed sites have seen contamination rates of up to 30 percent, and illegal dumping outside of the bins at those sites totaled 41 tons in 2024, which also adds to recycling program costs.”
Glass is the most expensive material to recycle due to the low commodity value and the material weight, which is costly to transport, Cairns said.
“At an average value of $15 per ton, recycled glass doesn’t even cover the transportation costs to get it to the buyer in Seattle,” Cairns said. “When the loads are highly contaminated, the value drops even more. Presently, the cost of recycling glass and the other materials accepted as part of the county’s recycling program are part of the rate paid for garbage disposal at the county’s solid waste facilities.
“We have a responsibility to those customers to reduce costs for the programs funded with the tipping fee.”
Cairns said he’s glad to see the recycling program return. If anything, the absence of glass recycling in the county showed how passionate the community is about it, he said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
