At a May 30 ribbon cutting, town officials, local legislators, and community recycling advocates gathered at the Town of Dennis’ Transfer Station to watch public works trucks from Wellfleet, Barnstable, and Dennis tip 10-ton loads of glass at the new regional glass recycling depot. With a $120,500 grant from the MassDEP, the Town of Dennis created a local outlet where glass collected from residents and businesses will be converted into processed glass aggregate (PGA). That’s a fancy way of saying the glass gets crushed into a construction grade product for public works projects such as pipe bedding and sub-base road and sidewalk construction.

Through the Northeast Resource Recovery Association, a contracted vendor will bring mobile equipment to Dennis every six months to crush the glass into a coarse sand-like material.  With summer upon us, Cape Cod homes and businesses generate a lot of glass. Instead of trucking that glass off-Cape to a recycling facility, as the towns have done for decades, the glass will be processed and used locally. That saves a lot of truck miles, diesel emissions, and cost for local communities. Towns that deliver glass to Dennis will pay a per-ton fee (much less than off-Cape prices) and will take-back an equivalent amount of processed glass aggregate once it’s ready.