WESTPORT — The town has launched a pilot program that separates glass from the single-stream recycling system.

 A receptacle is now designated for glass recycling at the town’s transfer station, 300 Sherwood Island Connector. 

Residents can deposit glass beverage bottles, food jars and other kinds of glassware. Glass materials should be rinsed and the lids and caps removed before deposit, according to the announcement from the Department of Public Works.

“The problem with glass in the single stream is that it breaks, and then contaminates paper, cardboard and other recyclables with broken glass particles. This reduces the market value of all recyclables,” DPW Director Peter Ratkiewich said in announcing the program.

Meanwhile, according to Ratkiewich’s statement, “small bits of paper, bottle caps, straws and other metals contaminate the glass so much that it can’t be effectively recycled, so it either gets used as landfill cover, or is discarded as residual waste. 

“By separating glass from the single stream, contamination is eliminated on both ends, and makes the glass more valuable,” he said.

Westport is one of five communities in the 14-town Greater Bridgeport Regional Solid Waste Interlocal Committee doing a soft launch of the glass-recycling program. 

The limited pilot phase of the program, during which logistics and procedures will be refined, is expected to expand into a broader effort involving the nine other communities in the group within six months to a year, according to the announcement.

The separated glass is sent to a recycling facility in Beacon Falls, where it is converted to an additive that replaces fly ash in concrete products. The additive not only reinforces concrete better, officials said, but also reduces the carbon footprint from making concrete since fly ash is a byproduct of coal-burning power plants. 

The new glass-recycling facility will have the capacity to process all the glass generated in the state’s 169 municipalities, officials said.