Glass recycling collection was up in the air when Summit County’s main service provider went out of business in November, but High Country Conservation Center Community Programs Director Rachel Zerowin said other waste and recycling haulers that operate in the county have been able to make up for the lost service.

When Clear Intentions went out of business, Zerowin said there were clients all over the county in need of glass recycling service. Summit Roll-Offs and Timberline Disposal and Recycling have been picking up glass, Zerowin said, including at the Strong Future-funded glass recycling stations as well homeowner associations, restaurants and other businesses.

“We’re so thankful that the haulers in the community have stepped up to offer that service, and certainly if there’s still folks out there who have had recycling discontinued at their business or HOA and they’re not sure what to do, Summit Roll-Offs and Timberline are both offering those services,” Zerowin said.

When haulers collect glass recycling from commercial customers, they bring it to the Summit County Resource Allocation Park, Zerowin said. From there, the glass recycling is brought to the Rocky Mountain bottling company on the Front Range to be recycled.

In Breckenridge, town Sustainability Coordinator Jessie Burley said the town manages 10 enclosures for trash and recycling downtown, which are shared by nearby businesses. When Clear Intentions went out of business, she said glass started to pile up.

So while Timberline and Summit Roll-Offs took on this service in other areas of the county, Breckenridge’s public works staff stepped in to haul glass from the town-managed enclosures. Burley said having the town’s public works department do the hauling is only a temporary solution.

“We have a bigger waste study that we’re trying to put together some funding for, but we know that glass needs to be taken care of and this is something that our staff can’t handle in the long term,” Burley said, adding that the town plans to put out a request for proposals by spring.

While glass can’t go into Summit County’s single-stream recycling bins, it is particularly important to recycle due to its durability, Zerowin said.

“Glass and aluminum are infinitely recyclable, so those are two great things to recycle,” Zerowin said. “Whereas plastic, that degrades over time, so maybe your plastic bottle gets turned into a fleece and then maybe it gets used again or gets used for cleaning rags, but after that, it degrades over time.”

For individual residents who are not part of an HOA that has recycling service, Zerowin noted that there are 12 glass recycling stations in the county where people can drop off their used glass containers. There also are recycling centers in Silverthorne, Frisco and Breckenridge.