Shattering Obstacles to Glass Recycling in Montana

A little over five years ago, Cory Cullen, owner of New World Recycling, started the valley’s only curbside recycling service with a Subaru, a small trailer and a $5,000 loan. The business was meant to be just a holdover while he looked for jobs related to his photography degree.

He walked the streets of Whitefish handing out fliers offering $6 monthly pickup. “I figured I could sign up 1,000 customers easy,” he said. After several months, he had only 32. “That loan wasn’t going to get paid back very fast making like $180 a month,” Cullen jokes.

Most of the recyclable materials he picked up on his routes could be easily dropped at local recycling businesses. But, in order to offer glass recycling – the only business in the valley to do so – he drove heavy loads of glass more than 170 miles to Smelterville, Idaho, where it was being used in the reconstruction of I-90. After a few close calls on the road, he decided to build his own glass crusher.

“I threw six river rocks in a six-cubic-foot cement mixer and would basically grind it away to powder that disappeared in air; it wasn’t being reused, but at least it wasn’t going in the dump,” Cullen said.

While New World Recycling’s beginnings were modest, the fact that Cullen attempted the business – and has been able to continue and grow since – is remarkable in a state where few glass recycling options even exist.

New World Recycling

1620 E Edgewood Dr

Whitefish, MT

(406) 863-9311

Full Story: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/shattering_obstacles_to_glass_recycling/3118/