Waco, Texas, launches glass recycling program

Keep Waco Beautiful, a community organization in Waco, Texas, has launched a program aimed at improving glass recycling for residents across the citythrough the use of four recycling containers. The program was launched in partnership with the city of Waco, Houston-based glass recycler Strategic Materials Inc. (SMI) and Perrysburg, Ohio-based glass manufacturer O-I Glass (formerly Owens-Illinois). Pernod Ricard USA, a wine and spirit manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in New York, helped fund the program.

“This is a win, win, win for all,” says Ashley Millerd, solid waste administrator at the Waco Solid Waste Department. “This is the first kind of program where you have a big industry, a municipality and a national nonprofit that get to benefit from it all.”

The first of three drop-off containers was installed Jan. 19 in downtown Waco, with others going in east Waco and near Baylor University. The fourth container is mobile and being used for events. The containers were provided by O-I Glass through its Glass4Good recycling program.

Millerd says the bins will collect glass bottles, jars and containers that have been cleaned. Labels on the glass do not need to be removed before dropping off the material. 

Carole Fergusson, executive director of Keep Waco Beautiful, says volunteers from the organization will monitor the containers and call the city’s solid waste department when they need to be emptied. The city will collect the containers and take them to O-I Glass for tipping before the material is taken to SMI to be separated. The glass then returns to O-I for remanufacturing. Any proceeds O-I Glass makes from the glass cullet will go to United Way of Waco-McLennan County.  

“Cullet is much easier to work with than virgin material, which uses more energy to produce glass bottles or containers,” Millerd says. “Since cullet uses less energy, it will return to shelves for reuse much quicker. It’s a closed-loop system that helps keep glass out of our landfill.”  

In 2017, Millerd, then the executive director of Keep Waco Beautiful, got the idea for the program after touring the O-I glass plant in Waco where she learned how sustainable glass can be. After the tour, Waco’s solid waste department reached out to Millerd for help with its waste diversion efforts because the landfill the city uses will be closed in 2025.

Her first idea was to expand the city's existing glass recycling program. At that time, glass was collected at one drop-off location, making it hard for some residents to access because of how large the city is. She helped launch a pilot program in 2019 that used four blue carts that were placed throughout downtown Waco. 

“I decided to launch a pilot program just to see if it was worth the investment because, right now, you can’t recycle glass anywhere except for our drop-off collection site,” Millerd says. “This is because our local [material recovery facility] can’t recycle glass due to concerns like contamination.”  

The glass collection was so popular that Keep Waco Beautiful eventually emptied the carts twice per week for six months. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the program stopped, but not before it collected about 14,000 pounds of glass.

While the program has no official collection goals, Millerd and Fergusson say they want to expand it and increase glass recycling access and education across the city. Specifically, Fergusson hopes to bring the program to communities with large minority populations. By the end of the year, Waco will receive five smaller containers that the organization says will help meet these goals.