SOUTHEAST BOISE, Idaho — Fourth of July celebrations — like many festive weekends — tend to generate a lot of glass, from pickle and pepperoncini jars to beer and wine bottles. The City of Boise has one request: don’t throw it away.
Contrary to popular belief, Boise does recycle glass. And city officials want residents to know exactly how the process works.
“Whenever there’s a big event with people gathering, you know that there’s gonna be a lot of glass,” said Gabe Brenner, who helps manage the city’s recycling programs.
WATCH | See how the process works from start to finish
Brenner explained that many residents think their only option is to toss their glass in the trash.
“One of the myths that we always hear from Boise residents is that we can’t recycle our glass at home, but we actually can and we recycled about 44,000 tons of it last year,” Brenner said.
There's a few ways to give your bottles and jars a second life — residents can order a special glass recycling bin that’s picked up monthly from their home or visit one of 11 free drop-off sites around town.
“Glass recycling is one of the coolest recycling programs that we have because it’s recycled here locally and it can be used here locally,” Brenner said.
Once collected, the glass heads to Environmental Abrasives in Southeast Boise.
“So here’s all the glass that we’ve collected throughout Boise, Garden City and eastern Oregon,” said Emma Nelson with Environmental Abrasives as she pointed out a massive pile of glass.
Here's how it works: glass is first stockpiled whole in a big pile, then crushed into progressively smaller pieces. Finally, it’s cleaned and processed until it can be used as sandblasting material for various projects, like cabin restorations, automobile restorations and aerospace components among other uses.
Nelson said the facility is the only one in Idaho that recycles glass this way, but it’s only seeing a fraction of what’s produced locally.
“We’re only receiving 20% of the glass — that means 80% is ending up in the landfill,” Nelson said.
The goal, Nelson said, is to expand the program to other parts of Idaho to make glass recycling easier
“It’s supporting a local business… just to give people the opportunity to recycle and have it not end up in the landfill,” she said.
You can find the drop off location closest to you with an interactive map here.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been, in part, converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
