Northern Virginians are eagerly embracing a new glass-to-glass recycling program that’s collected nearly 5 million pounds of glass in about six months.
In fall 2019, Northern Virginia’s traditional curbside programs stopped collecting glass. Instead, residents could recycle their glass containers at one of the new purple glass-only drop-off bins in the area. The glass from those purple bins is collected, crushed locally, processed at a plant in North Carolina, then sold to companies for reuse.
The purple bins collect roughly 200,000 pounds of glass a week, which Northern Virginia officials say are very promising results.
O-I is looking forward to the opportunity to use some of this glass in its two Virginia plants, which together, produced over one million glass containers per day. O-I, along with other leading glass manufacturers, use recycled glass in the manufacturing process because it creates circularity of local products, reduces reliance on natural resources in the supply chains, and reduces energy consumption and emissions.
