Glass is a big problem for single stream recycling. A few years ago, Chattanooga decided to stop accepting glass in the curbside recycling bins. This is because glass shatters. The small pieces of glass embed themselves into other things in the recycling bin, particularly paper, and render them unusable and bound for the landfill.
But Chattanoogans can still recycle glass!
In fact, glass as a material can be melted down and reused indefinitely (unlike plastic, which can typically only be recycled once or twice before going to the landfill). Using recycled glass also saves significant amounts of energy compared to creating new glass from sand.
Overlooked Materials is a local glass recycling business in Chattanooga that will pick up glass from your house. It is quite inexpensive and is easy. They often hold open houses at their processing room in Highland Park, so check out their event page.
If you need to have recycling for free and don’t mind dropping it off, the city still has five different recycling collection sites where you can drop off your glass for recycling. However, since the glass is sent to Atlanta for processing, inducing a significant amount of pollution, it would be better to recycle with Overlooked Materials if possible.
Click here to see which Chattanooga recycling collection centers are located and what their hours are (scroll down the page to “RECYCLE CENTERS”)
Zero Waste Chattanooga 