Empty wine and beer bottles, mayonnaise and peanut butter jars and all glass beverage containers … Westport accepts them all (provided they are clean and without a lid, top or cork) in the Oakridge glass recycling container located at the Westport Transfer Station.

In December 2021, Co-Directors, Gately and Jo, along with the Director of the Department of Public Works, Pete Ratkiewich, took a tour of the Urban Mining Glass Recycling facility located in Beacon Falls, CT. All the glass that Westport collects at the Transfer Station during the “soft” pilot program now underway goes to this local recycling center.

Urban Mining has created a revolutionary new product through recycling 100% post-consumer glass that is harvested and processed regionally (i.e., in Westport and surrounding towns). They clean, sort and grind down the glass, transforming it into pozzolan, an industrial filler that is safer, more sustainable and higher performing than its predecessor, fly ash, a byproduct of coal-burning power plants. Their proprietary industrial filler is called Pozzotive.

Pozzitive pozzolan is used in concrete and its use dramatically reduces carbon dioxide emissions created by concrete production. Furthermore, the making of Pozzitive (1) minimizes contamination in the recycling stream, (2) creates a circular economy where regional towns provide the raw materials and can use the recycled product in their sustainable building materials and also (3) reduces transportation emissions.

Read more about Westport’s glass recycling program here and read more about Urban Mining and Pozzotive.