CHEYENNE — After working out at a gym, Amy Mahaffy dropped off a half-dozen glass jars in a city recycling container — but her jars won’t be recycled any time soon. Their destination: a mound of glass at the city landfill, an ever-growing monument to the difficulty many communities across the country face in finding a market for a commodity that is too cheap for its own good.
“We are stockpiling it in a desperate search for a market,” said landfill foreman Monty Landers.
Cheyenne has not recycled the glass it collects — 9 tons a week — for years. Instead, the city has been putting it in the landfill, using it to surround the concrete-walled wells that pump toxic fluids out of the dump.
The economics of glass recycling have been marginal for some time. Nationwide, only about 25 percent of glass containers are recycled. The challenge is that the main ingredient in glass — sand — is plentiful and cheap.
Cheyenne plans to buy a glass pulverizer and is considering at least two uses for the glass it plans to grind into a fine consistency: in place of sand in road construction and at playgrounds. The Associated Press
