Tacoma residents can drop off glass bottles and old windows at the city's Mullen Street recycling center, where Hilltop Artists youth will turn them into art.

The City of Tacoma and Hilltop Artists launched "This Is What We Make of It" on Tuesday, Sept. 15, a six-month pilot testing whether recycled glass can feed a local art supply chain.

The program runs through the end of February 2027, according to the city.

Residents bring clear bottles and float glass, such as unframed windows and glass shelving, to the Tacoma Recycle Center at 3510 S. Mullen St.

Staff process the glass into cullet, a crushed material that glassblowers can melt and shape.

Hilltop Artists students and instructors then use that cullet in the nonprofit's education and production programs.

The finished pieces will go toward AMOCAT Arts Awards, locally hidden glass treasures and other Hilltop Artists projects. AMOCAT is Tacoma spelled backward.

The city describes the effort as a test of a "closed-loop system" for local specialty glass production, connecting recycling with youth education, environmental stewardship and the local creative economy.

Hilltop Artists, co-founded by glass artist Dale Chihuly and Kathy Kaperick in 1994, serves more than 650 students a year with tuition-free glassmaking instruction across Pierce County. Students ages 12 to 26 learn the craft in daytime elective classes at Hilltop Heritage Middle School and Silas High School, after-school enrichment programs and Arts Connect cohorts for court-involved teens.

The organization's advanced Team Production program sends students ages 14 to 20 to create commissioned work, including pieces for the Governor's Arts and Heritage Awards.

The pilot arrives as Hilltop Artists expands its sustainability efforts. The nonprofit said Monday, Sept. 14, on LinkedIn that a 2026 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Climate Initiative grant will fund the design and initial build of an environmentally responsible mobile glass studio.

The studio would use recycled glass batch, renewable propane furnaces and solar-powered annealers.

Executive Director Dr. Kimberly Keith has long framed the organization's mission around access. In a March 2022 press release for the "GATHER" exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum, Keith said, "Glass is expensive and exclusive, yet local BIPOC artists are having a breakthrough moment where they get to show what they can do and finally have a say in the narrative that has too often left them out."

The glass drop-off also follows a recent shift in the city's recycling network. The City of Tacoma said on X that its glass recycling site at 56th Street and Tacoma Mall Boulevard closed Sept. 3, leaving five other locations citywide.

Residents can find accepted glass types and drop-off details on the Hilltop Artists program page.