Glass removed from DeKalb County's curbside recycling program.

DeKalb County’s government is asking residents to stop putting glass in their curbside recycling containers.

Instead, those who want to recycle their glass can bring it to any of 16 locations across the county.

The new glass recycling process goes into effect July 17 after it was approved by the DeKalb Commission on Tuesday.

Glass should be separated from other recyclable materials, according to the county. Glass too often shatters in recycling containers, ruining other materials like cardboard, paper and aluminum.

For residents who don’t want to sort their glass and drive it to a recycling center, they should throw it away with the rest of their non-recyclable trash, according to the county.

“DeKalb joins a growing nationwide trend to adopt the glass sort-separation process in order to preserve the integrity of recycled glass,” said DeKalb County Sanitation Division spokeswoman Pauline Andrea.

Glass collected by the county hasn't been recycled since 2015. That's when the county's recycling company, Pratt Industries, opened a facility in Conyers that doesn't process glass. The glass ended up in a landfill.

The county recently contracted with Strategic Materials, which has a plant in College Park that recycles glass. Strategic Materials will pay DeKalb $30 for every ton of glass the county drops off, Andrea said.

Residents can drop off glass at the following locations: