BIG Recyclers partners with nonprofits to meet statewide demands

BIG Recyclers, a Walla Walla-based glass recycling company, is helping pick up the pieces after Ardagh, a Seattle-based production facility that collects recycled glass to make new bottles, closed its doors in late 2024.

Chris Lueck, the founder and president of BIG Recyclers, said the closure is causing a “ripple effect” in Washington state.

Nonprofit glass recyclers in the state are seeing an increase of glass dropped off at their facilities but now have nowhere to send it, he said.

To meet the increase in demand, BIG Recyclers is allowing nonprofits to donate clean glass through its Yakima location, which has collected so far 12,000 pounds of glass through three drop-off events.

One of BIG Recyclers' earliest partnerships formed with Basin Disposal Inc., who transports glass from Walla Walla and Yakima to Pasco, which is then picked up by Owens-Illinois and transported to a recycled-glass production facility in Portland.

The four nonprofits BIG Recyclers are working closely with includes Yakima Recycles-Glass, Sustainable Tri-Cities, Sustainable NCW of Leavenworth and Waste Loop of Wenatchee.

“Our goal in the next year is to not only get 400,000 pounds from Walla Walla, but maybe an additional 100,000 to 125,000 pounds from Yakima, which would put us at the half a million-pound threshold,” Lueck said.

Getting recyclable glass to its necessary destination takes time, but if a nonprofit within 100 miles of Yakima brings recyclable glass to Yakima Recycles-Glass, it can then get picked up by Basin Disposal Inc. and on its way through the system.

BIG Recyclers partnership with Owens-Illinois began in 2023 and will continue through 2025. This partnership also costs nothing for BIG Recyclers, which Lueck said is because of the quality of glass they recycle.

“Owens-Illinois for this year, for 2025, has told us, BIG Recyclers, that they're willing to send their trucks free of charge to Pasco to pick up our glass because .... we have really super clean glass, upwards of 95% non-contaminated glass,” he said.

A barrier that many nonprofit glass-recyclers face include access to glass production facilities. Owen-Illinois operates two sites in the Pacific Northwest — one in Portland and one in Kalama, Washington.

“(The Kalama facility) is getting so much glass now that some of it is being sent by rail to Salt Lake City because there's a glass factory out there ... and it's where they make insulated fiberglass,” he said.

Owens-Illinois sites do not accept glass from non-contracted haulers because of codes from the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, so smaller Washington nonprofits need to use partnerships to haul recyclable glass.

BIG Recyclers began operating in Walla Walla in 2023 and runs based off a "hub and spoke" system. The Walla Walla location was the first "spoke" and is membership-based.

Lueck said he wanted to begin working in Walla Walla because of the wine industry and the amount of recyclable leftover glass here.

“What we're trying to prove together is that if a rural regional area like Yakima, Tri-Cities and Walla Walla can come together, work together, then they can roll out the same model ... for some of their other factories that are located in more rural areas,” he said.

At the end of 2024, BIG Recyclers had 300 residential members and 70 businesses paying to recycle glass. Initially, the company began with 23 businesses and 65 residential members.

In the past year, BIG Recyclers recycled 345,000 pounds of glass.

“We could understand the wineries wanting to join us, but the residents, it's just a call to those people, the elected officials that they are screaming for glass recycling in the Walla Walla Valley,” he said.