New Pickens County Landfill equipment reduces glass waste

PICKENS COUNTY., S.C. (WSPA) – When glass can’t be sold for recycling, it can end up in landfills at the expense of taxpayers.

According to the Pickens County Solid Waste Director, 25 tons of glass are stored at the Pickens County Landfill every month. Now, with a new glass pulverizer, there are more ways to put glass to use.

Solid Waste Director, Steve Raines, said the demand for glass recyclables has decreased which means fewer vendors are purchasing it.

“The market is just not conducive for glass right now and it was costing us a lot of money to have it taken out of here when we could get people to pick it up,” said Raines.

Recently the solid waste department received a $34,165 grant to buy a glass pulverizer.

The new equipment crushes the glass into quarter inch size sand.

“We’re hoping to be able to use the sand in the landfill. It’s not massive quantities of it, but it’ll be enough for us to be able to recycle some of this glass and we’ll be able to use it in our landfill to fill in the ruts, in our gravel roads on the property,” said Raines.

Raines said that’s just the start.

“We’re also looking at some other things. We’ve got a collaborative project going on within the county right now. They’re looking at a couple of areas where we have some flooding issues and we’re looking at using this sand material and some continuous sandbags to try to mitigate some of this flooding,” Raines said. “We’ve got a couple other things that we’re looking at as well to be able to use the sand in to help with our emergency services and a few other places.”

Raines said the goal is to encourage residents to find ways to reuse glass at home, but if it does end up at the landfill, the solid waste department said  they are trying to cut back on the cost for taxpayers.

“We want to recycle, do the right thing, but we want to be able to do it at net zero or at a profit to the taxpayers. There’s a purpose for it, we just gotta realize it and that’ll come in time and so we’re looking at all of the alternatives that we can,” said Raines.

Starting Monday, September 9th, glass recyclables will only be accepted at the Pickens County Landfill in order to concentrate the solid waste department’s sustainability efforts.

If you choose not to recycle glass at the Pickens County Landfill after September 9th, you will have to put glass with your household garbage.

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