The glass ceiling: in part because of the issues raised by commingled collections, challenges face the glass recycling sector - Commodity Focus

Recycling Today, Dec, 2002 by DeAnne Toto

Municipal recycling programs have a love/hate relationship with glass. While it is great for increasing diversion rates, the growing popularity of commingled collections has had a negative effect on the amount of quality glass collected. Commingled glass commands lower prices from recyclers, therefore continued collection of the material is less appealing to the municipality financially.

Strategic Materials Inc., Houston, is a glass recycler and powdered glass processor with more than 30 plants and depots throughout the U.S. According to the Strategic Materials Web site, the company handles 33 percent of the domestic cullet market. Curt Bucey, COO of Strategic Materials, says something of a downward spiral is at play concerning the supply of quality cullet.

"Collection trends today threaten the health of glass recycling. The amount of quality glass we are receiving is rapidly declining. All of our customers are requiring higher quality levels," Bucey says. "Our costs to correct this supply deterioration are increasing, and we eventually pass these higher costs along to cities in the form of lower prices paid for their recyclables. We also reject more of their material as unusable. The cities, in turn, can't seem to figure out why they are getting paid less per ton and try to recover their lost money by cutting corners even further, which in turn causes the quality to deteriorate further."

Without question, Bucey says, glass container plants want cullet because it offers significant benefits compared to the raw materials used to make glass.

BENEFICIAL CULLET

Cullet usage enables glass-melting furnaces to be run at lower temperatures, resulting in substantial energy savings compared to using raw materials exclusively. "When you melt raw materials, the various ingredients have to be fused together at a very high temperature," Bucey says. "According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, recycling one ton of glass saves nine gallons of fuel oil."

Additionally, cullet reduces furnace emissions. "When you melt raw materials into glass, approximately 15 percent to 20 percent is lost during the fusion process," Bucey says. "This loss primarily goes up the smokestack in the form of air emissions. Since recycled glass cullet already has been fused, it does not have to go through this process again, and re-melting it drastically reduces air pollution."

If supply were plentiful, quality acceptable and prides competitive with raw materials, Bucey says that glass container and fiberglass manufacturers "could easily use over 200 percent more recycled glass in their furnaces."

SINGLE-STREAM SNAG?

Joe Cattaneo, president of the Glass Packaging Institute (GPI), Alexandria, Va., says that of the 56 glass container manufacturing plants, four do not use post-consumer cullet because they manufacture containers for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. The other 52 plants depend on it, Cattaneo says.

"They all use post-consumer cullet in variance," he says. "And the variances depend on the quality and availability." Cattaneo says that container manufacturers can still get quality cullet from commingled collections, "but they have less to get because in commingling, so much is lost in residue."

Bucey adds that as residential programs convert to commingled-collections preferred by waste haulers, the result is "a migration of material that could be sold into higher-value markets to material that ends up as aggregate or landfill." However, Bucey adds, "In deposit states, the quantity of high-quality material grows each year as the population grows."

Bucey adds that because the container producers prefer the consistent cullet from deposit states, the glass tends to be shipped longer distances.

He says, "Strategic Materials favors the California deposit system as it is less reliant on grocers, soft drink manufacturers and beer distributors who, historically, oppose deposit legislation because of the costs and inconveniences it places on them."

In terms of price, Bucey says, "Raw material is the absolute driver. California has gotten around that by requiring a minimum content [of recycled glass used to make new bottles]."

PRICING PREDICAMENT

Commingling has also affected the pricing of cullet, Bucey says. "Pricing is much more varied than it was five years ago," he says. "It was flat five years ago."

Cattaneo says that consistent cullet pricing is derived from the container market. "Container and fiberglass companies will [always] pay a respectable price." He says cullet prices respond to what is manufactured. "If there's more demand for making clear bottles, than the price for flint, or clear glass, could go up."

Because tolerances for amber glass are greater, meaning cullet of other colors can be incorporated to a degree, the price stays fairly steady, he says.

"Very few plants make green glass, so there's no demand. The dilemma is that so much green glass is imported into the U.S., [that] we have to do something with it," Cattaneo says.

Nebraska provides a good example of pricing variations. According to the association s pricing surveys conducted throughout Nebraska for the second quarter of 2002, clear cullet ranged from $0 in region three, northeastern Nebraska, to $26 in region four, the lower half of the northeastern third of the state. Brown glass ranged from $10 in region four to $22.50 in region one, the far west panhandle. Green glass was valued at zero statewide.