Ecoserv seeks HOAs for glass recycling

Ecoserv focuses on townhouse and apartment residents.

Now that Fairfax County stopped accepting glass in its curbside recycling program, Annandale resident William Moss offers an alternative.

Moss’s company, Ecoserv, contracts with community and homeowner associations to collect used glass bottles and jars and drop them off for recycling at Fairfax County’s I-95 Landfill Complex. The service isn’t available to individual homeowners, just HOAs.

Customers can get bins from Ecoserv or use their own.

After Fairfax County advised residents not to put glass in their blue recycling bins, it installed large purple glass-collection bins at various sites around the county in 2019, including the Mason Government Center. Those bins were temporarily removed earlier this month to protect sanitation workers during the coronavirus emergency.

Related story: Recycling bin just for glass now at the Mason Government Center

As a result, homeowners now either have to dump glass items in their trash bins or take them to one of the county’s two recycling centers themselves. Neither of those centers are convenient for Mason District residents; the I-95 Landfill Complex is in Lorton, and the I-66 Transfer Station is on Ox Road in Fairfax.

“People want to recycle glass. They don’t want the trouble,” Moss says.

Moss founded Ecoserv in 2015 to clean up trash washed onto private property from the Potomac River, but found glass recycling more profitable. He branched out into glass after a client suggested it. “It all fell into place by accident,” he says.

Ecoserv picked up six metric tons of glass in the past year, Moss says, and the number of clients continues to grow.

The cost for Ecoserv’s glass recycling program depends on how many households the HOA serves, the frequency of pickup (weekly, monthly, or twice a month), and whether the HOA wants to purchase recycling bins from the company or have residents use their own bins or cardboard boxes.

Related story: Fairfax County cuts back on solid waste services

He says the county stopped having people put glass in the same recycling bins as other material because the glass breaks, contaminating other recyclables.

The glass collected by Ecoserv – as well as the glass collected when the county’s purple bins are restored – are ground up by the Big Blue machine, which creates pellets for use in road and stormwater projects.

If your homeowner or community association is interested in learning more about Ecoserv, contact William Moss at 703-434-9209 or [email protected].