Quaker Valley Council of Governments officials have selected a Sewickley site for its glass recycling program.

The municipal government cooperative has been mulling over where to put a permanent bin to serve its 15-member communities for quite some time.

Sewickley officials made a suggestion last month to use a portion of a Riverfront Park lot, near the park’s playgrounds, as a recycling hub.

QV COG executive director Patrick Conners said the site has been approved, and a bin will be installed there on March 12.

“They were nice enough to offer this as a 24/7 solution for this test program,” Conners said. “It is a big responsibility for the town keeping an eye on it.”

It is a 20-yard bin that can hold between four to five tons of glass.

Sewickley public works crews would be tasked to check on it at least once a day in order to keep it safe.

Julie Barnes, borough council vice president and COG representative, thanked the organization for approving their recommendation.

“I’m thrilled that Sewickley offered a site for glass recycling and that the COG is moving quickly to get it established,” she said. “This shared community asset illustrates that, when we work with neighboring communities, we can offer quality-of-life improvements that individual municipalities typically cannot offer on their own.”

Quaker Valley Council of Governments communities include Aleppo, Avalon, Bell Acres, Bellevue, Ben Avon, Edgeworth, Emsworth, Glen Osborne, Glenfield, Haysville, Kilbuck, Leet, Leetsdale, Sewickley and Sewickley Heights.

The COG had five pop-up recycling events in different municipalities last year with the help of the Pennsylvania Resources Council.

Conners said he expects a lot of people will take advantage of the opportunity to keep glass out of landfills, and having a centralized location will prove useful.

“This is one of those things that people are passionate about,” Conners said. “We have the resources and energy to get it done. I’m really excited for it to take off. People get confused when (the recycling bin) moves around so much. We want to make sure we could give something our residents could rely on.”

The bin will be available at Riverfront Park for at least the next three months to test the program, which began a few years ago when glass recycling was taken out of curbside trash pickups.

Rules for using the bin

No proof of residency is required to use the bin. It will be open from dawn to dusk.

There will be signage as to what can and cannot be recycled.

Glass containers must be rinsed of any perishable debris prior to being recycled.

Adhesive labels and container lids do not need to be removed from glass prior to being recycled.

Conners said the bin will be hauled by Michael Brothers Hauling to and from CAP Glass in Mt. Pleasant, one of the nation’s largest glass recyclers. Both businesses were also used during last year’s pop-up events.

More information about the recycling program is available at qvcog.org.