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Recycling achieves its optimal results when communities make it a habit. Interruptions break habits as assuredly as apathy.

So, tenacity and opportunity are crucial for a cleaner, healthier and recycling-friendly community. The opportunity factor is about to become better.

Starting Aug. 12, Vigo County residents will be able to recycle their glass containers for free. Glass recycling in Vigo County has largely been idled since the start of the pandemic in 2020, when the Indiana State University Recycling Center closed. That facility reopened last year, but no longer accepts glass or plastic.

Now, the Vigo County Solid Waste Management District has entered into a three-year contract with Strategic Materials in Indianapolis. That company will haul glass collected at the district's recycling center at 3230 E. Haythorne Ave. on Terre Haute's north side. Strategic Materials will charge the district $100 per haul. The district is funded through tipping fees at the Sycamore Landfill, not property taxes.

The service must be done through drop-offs at the Haythorne Avenue center. County residents should not add glass to their existing home recycling containers, picked up by Republic Services. Republic does not accept glass.

The process is simple. Glass food items from the grocery store — wine and beer bottles, and jars for things like pickles, jelly and spaghetti sauce — can be recycled. They should be thoroughly washed, with the lids either left out or tightened securely at drop-off time. The items that cannot be recycled at the district include heat-resistant glass or Pyrex, computer monitors, phone screens, windows or sliding doors, safety glass, car windshields, art glass, leaded crystal and light bulbs, as well as ceramics.

Glass recyclables can be dropped into the district's large green container. Recycling drop-off hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first Saturday of every month.

The district also accepts certain paper, plastic, cardboard and aluminum items. (For a full list, go online to VigoCountySolidWaste.org or call 812-231-4451.) The big news, though, is that residents have a chance to also recycle their glass again. All recycled items should be dropped into the district's designated receptacles unbagged, or "single stream."

Vigo County was not the only community where glass recycling became difficult in recent years. Many cities and counties around the nation cut glass from their recycling roster when haulers stopped carrying it, or when an increase in recycling costs led municipalities to instead dump the glass in landfills, according to a report earlier this year by recycling news website Waste Dive. In 2022, fewer communities are dropping glass recycling, and many are restoring that service, like Ypsilanti, Michigan; Laconia, New Hampshire; and Greensboro, North Carolina.

The glass recycling economy has improved as environmental pressures to reduce plastic use increased, Waste Dive reported. Momentum is growing to expand glass recycling. Americans recycled 3.1 million tons of it in 2018, the most recent data available, according to Waste Dive. That amounts to a 31.3% recycling rate. The glass industry intends to increase that amount to 50% by 2030.

For Vigo County to be a prime contributor to that effort, recycling must not only return to its pre-pandemic level here, but exceed it.

Karrum Nasser, the Solid Waste District executive director, emphasized that residents must take advantage of the new glass recycling program for it to succeed. That is not simple. Recycling takes effort, time and personal resources. It benefits the community, though, and is worthwhile.

"Our rule of thumb is, anything that we save from going into the landfill is a success," Nasser said. Enhanced recycling also keeps glass, paper, plastic, cardboard and aluminum from becoming litter along roadsides, parks and sidewalks.

It is time for recycling to become a habit around Terre Haute and Vigo County.

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