Iowa City Today

City of Iowa City recently issued the following announcement.

Three additional glass drop-off locations have been established for our service area (residents of Johnson County, Kalona, Riverside) to recycle glass at no cost.

The new locations will be for glass only (except for Coralville Drop-off Recycling Center); there will not be recycling options for plastic, metal, paper, or cardboard. As a reminder, the glass drop-off bins have been recently painted purple.

New glass recycling locations 

The Upper City Park and Robert A. Lee Recreation Center locations have glass recycling only; there are not recycling options for plastic, metal, paper, or cardboard.

• Upper City Park (200 Park Rd, Iowa City)
  1. Enter at Park Road, across from N. Riverside Drive
  2. Purple glass recycling bin is located in NW corner of parking lot
• Robert A. Lee Recreation Center parking lot (220 S. Gilbert St., Iowa City)
  1. Enter on Burlington Street
  2. Purple glass recycling bin is located in the NE corner of parking lot
• Coralville Drop-off Recycling Center (950 Hughes St., Coralville)

Other glass recycling locations

These locations have recycling for glass, along with plastic, metal, paper, and cardboard. 

• East Side Recycling Center (2401 Scott Blvd. SE, Iowa City)
• South Riverside Recycling Center (1200 South Riverside Dr., Iowa City)
• Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center (3900 Hebl Ave. SW, Iowa City)

What glass can be recycled?

All colors of glass bottles and jars (such as clear, blue, green, and brown) can be recycled mixed together.

Here are some glass recycling tips:

• Rinse food/beverage glass before recycling!
• Labels can stay on bottles and jars.
• Lids are fine to stay on bottles and jars, too.
  • If you prefer to remove them, here’s what to do with those caps/lids:
    • Plastic ones are trash.
    • Metal ones can be recycled.
    • Corks:
      • Natural corks can be recycled via the wine cork container at East Side Recycling Center (located in the Oil Shed).
      • Plastic/foam corks are trash.

These items are not allowed in glass recycling:

• Cardboard/paper drink carriers
• Plastic bags
• Window/pane glass
• Laminated glass/windshields
• Porcelain, ceramic, China/leaded glass, milk glass
• Pyrex, Corningware, dishware
• Mirrors
• Light bulbs

A friendly reminder that programs require maintenance! If you arrive at one of the locations listed above and you don’t see the purple bin, it may be en route to be emptied, but don’t worry, it will be right back.

Why is this important?

This program expansion is in response to the community identifying a need for easier, more accessible glass recycling options. Glass is not allowed in curbside recycling, as it lessens the quality of glass when added to a single stream recycling mix, making the glass difficult to recycle. By keeping glass separate, we ensure that we have a clean, high-quality product that is easy to recycle. Glass is 100% recyclable forever, which is why we don’t want this valuable material ending up in a landfill.

Questions? Contact the Recycling Coordinator, Jane Wilch, at 319-887-6110 or jane-wilch@iowa-city.org, or visit www.icgov.org/recycle.

Original source can be found here.