Up next for recycling: Glass

On the heels of collecting plastic, Sedalia’s recycling center is set to accept glass in the coming weeks and plans to add drop-off sites around the city.

Since the center reopened in January under a new partnership between the city and Center for Human Services, it has experienced steady growth in monthly collection rates.

After it began accepting plastic and repaired its road in June, the center saw significant spikes in drop-offs during the next month, processing 73,989 pounds of materials in July.
Manager Lou Ventura said that since starting the year with accepting office paper, cardboard, magazines, newspapers, tin and aluminum collections, the center has seen a surge in monthly processing totals after it began accepting plastic.

He said its monthly collection rate has more than tripled over the last nine months, growing from about 20,000 pounds of materials per month to about 70,000 pounds.

“The community has been all over this. I’ve been really happy with the response,” Ventura said. The center is at 2800 W. Main St.

Mickey Paul, director of employment services for Center for Human Services, said the center now employs four part-time workers, but if its collection trends keep pace, he hopes to hire additional full-time employees by next summer.

“It’s growing by leaps and bounds,” he said. “Our big goal is to employ people with developmental disabilities, and we haven’t gotten there yet ... but our goal is to have six full-time employees by next June.”

Paul said the addition of glass collections will represent another milestone. He expected that taking glass would dramatically increase the amount of material being processed and have a huge impact on reducing the amount of waste hauled to the landfill.

Ventura also was optimistic about the implications of accepting glass. The center’s original goal was processing 100,000 pounds of recyclable materials by the end of the year, and he believed the center could easily surpass that mark after the introduction of glass collections.

On Friday, an electrician put the finishing touches on the pulverizer that will crush glass into a material that can be used in a variety of ways.

“The electrician is hooking up power today (Friday), and then we’ll do a couple test runs,” Ventura said. “I would estimate that we’d start collecting glass about a week from Monday.”

After running through the pulverizer, the crushed glass will resemble pea gravel, Ventura said, and it can be converted into backfill, asphalt, landscaping materials or other materials.
Along with adding glass collections, the center plans to establish destination sites across the city.

The center received bids for collection trailers. Each trailer would cost about $6,000, and Paul said plans are to eventually order four, so that one destination site could be set up in each ward of the city.

The additional sites would help the center keep up with the stream of drop-offs quickly filling up its limited space, Ventura said. He also described the extra locations as a matter of safety and convenience for residents, especially as the winter months approach.

“The easier you make it for the general public to recycle, the more participation you’re going to get,” Paul said. “Once we get the destination sites, that’s when we’ll see the volume really go up.”

The drop-off sites are likely to be at least two months away from being available, Paul said. The center plans to open one location initially and monitor usage before adding locations.

“We have to do it right so we don’t get inundated, and we can keep up with it,” Paul said.

“We want our service to stay consistent.”