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Entrepreneur seeks to keep glass out of the trash

Durango Glass Project arises from city closing drop off sites

After the city shut down its glass drop-off sites in December, complaints from neighbors and friends inspired Christian Tribble to turn what might otherwise be trash into cash.

“Many, many people that I’ve talked to were frustrated,” he said.

The city shut down two dropoff points at Town Plaza and north City Market because the glass was getting so badly contaminated with trash that loads had to be taken to the landfill.

So in March, Tribble started the Durango Glass Project to help keep glass containers from ending up in the landfill. It is free for Durango residents to drop off glass at Durango Recycling Center, but Tribble wanted to provide an alternative for those who didn’t want to go up to the Tech Center and would otherwise throw glass away.

“I really felt it was important to put some effort to get some of that glass into the recycling,” he said.

In general, Southwest Colorado lags behind the nation’s recycling rates. Only 13 percent of the 107,000 tons of waste produced annually across a five-county region is being recycled, a 2015 audit found.

The national average is about 34.3 percent, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Tribble moved to Durango 2½ years ago from Northern California, where there was a major cultural emphasis on recycling.

“When the glass dropoff got shut down here, that was just kind of a shocker to me,” Tribble said.

He’s advertised his services and talked to a couple hundred people about his idea, while most have agreed his services are needed, it hasn’t correlated to the same number of customers.

“I was really expecting to have probably ten times the amount of customers than I do right now,” he said.

Right now, he picks up glass from a handful of people in his spare time, when he is not working at Natural Grocers.

To cover his costs, he charges $7 to pick up glass once a month, $10 for the service twice month and $15 to pick up materials every week.

To sign up for glass pick up email Tribble at durangoglassproject@gmail.com

mshinn@durangoherald.com

Dec 22, 2015
Southwest Colorado panel seeks to increase recycling as trash piles up
Dec 8, 2015
City of Durango dumps trashed out recycling sites


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