TUCSON, Ariz. - It’s Thursday night in Tucson, and if you’re over 21 chances are you’re either inside O’Malley’s at 247 N. 4th Ave. or you showed up a few minutes too late and you’re waiting in the line stretching around the block.

Inside the bar UA students mingle and squeeze past each other waving bills at the overwhelmed bartenders at one of three bars. There are so many customers pouring in for O’Malley’s to enjoy their two for one special Thursday nights they even open up a beer cart that only sells beer bottles which usually runs out long before the crowds disappear.

Which makes one wonder, where do all those bottles go?

If the guys yelling at patrons to clear a path hauling 30 gallon trash cans full of empty bottles and cups are any indication, straight into the dumpsters behind the bar and not into any sort of recycling bin – because there isn’t one back there.

Recycling and the use of renewable resources is a great way for people to minimize their economic impact on a personal level.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, America recycles 32.5 percent of the waste it produces, a total that has almost doubled over the previous 15 years.According to the EPA, recycling of glass bottles and aluminum cans has grown by 45 percent in the last 15 years but a Jan. 31 report in the Arizona Daily Star on the failed "glassphalt" experiment in Tucson (creating asphalt using pieces of recycled glass) shows that only 25 percent of all glass is recycled nationally.

But that begs the question. Does it make fiscal sense for a company to take the time and effort to separate their waste or will living green bring them closer to being in the red?

“We don’t have the room,” said Mara Jones, a bartender at O’Malley’s. “We just don’t have the space in here, to utilize our place, when it gets busy to worry about recycling,” Jones said.

On a Thursday night, one of the most popular and busiest nights for bars in a college town like Tucson, where Jones estimated the beer cart alone goes through over 15 cases of Bud Light (at least 360 bottles), recycling just doesn’t fit into the plans.

“Maybe if you’re at a bar in Scottsdale chargin' eight bucks a drink, then you can afford to do it, but not at a place like this,” said Mark (who declined to give his last name), a bartender and manager at Dirtbag’s Bar at 1800 E. Speedway Blvd., another hotspot for the college crowds.

“It all just becomes a big hassle, you can kill yourself tryin’ to live green but then you don’t have food for dinner," Mark added. "You’ve got to deal with separating the glass, is the city gonna pick it up? What about bums rootin’ through the dumpster in the back.

"It all just becomes another big pain in the ass.”

According to the EPA, recycling of glass bottles and aluminum cans has grown by 45 percent in the last 15 years, but a Jan. 31 report in the Arizona Daily Star on the failed “glassphalt” experiment in Tucson (creating asphalt using pieces of recycled glass) shows that only 25 percent of all glass is recycled nationally.

Bars like Dirtbag’s and O’Malley’s, which don’t claim to be restaurants, deal almost exclusively in glass bottles from beer and liquor. But bartenders in Tucson seemed as if they had already thought of and dismissed recycling at their place of business.

Recycling could have created this problem at bars, as before cities were responsible for providing recycling, beer companies used to use “returnable” bottles that would be sent back to the brewery and used again, at a discount to the customer. Now, without the beer companies taking the bottles back for a discount, there’s no motivation at the consumer’s end to do this.

“The companies don’t want the bottles back,” Mark said. “We used to do it, but they’ve got a good thing goin’ with the thin glass companies and they don’t wanna deal with the expenses.”

It turns out the companies do want the bottles back, but first they’ve got to go to Mexico.

“The glass bottles need to be sort of intact, then they can go to Mexico, and be sent back to the beer companies once they are ready for that," said Christina Polsgrove of the Tucson Clean and Beautiful Recycling program . "The crushed glass we can use here, and we have plenty of use for here.”

Polsgrove also said although statistics are down for the recycling of glass products and crushed glass in Tucson they have found ways just to reuse the glass.

“That’s one of the things that didn’t come across in the (Arizona Daily Star) article, we reuse the glass, which in some ways is preferable to recycling because it doesn’t use any energy, or water, to reuse (the glass)," she said. "It’s (the glass) is being used in our development projects, and creating new lining and layers for our landfills.”

The Tucson Clean and Beautiful Recycling program said that businesses in the campus area, like Dirtbag’s and O’Malley’s, can pay to have up to two of the plastic recycling bins residents receive free of charge for $14 per month if they are currently using the city’s waste removal.

If the business has a private waste removal company like Waste Management they can receive a large metal recycling container for $50 per month. The catch is that most private companies won’t recycle glass Polsgrove said, so bars would have to pay for the city’s removal.

So with no price breaks from the big beer companies, and no tax breaks from the city, what’s the answer to all this misused glass?

“No bottled beer,” said Mark. “Nothin’ in a bottle or a can. You’ve just got to serve all draft beer. But then if you want to have a nice beer like Fat Tire, you’ve got a shelf life on a keg of something like 10 days so there’s another problem.”

In addition to dealing with shelf life and switching kegs, a certain amount of atmosphere existed along with going to a bar.

“No one wants to pay $3.50 and get handed a can of beer; this is a different kind of experience," Mark said. "You want to come out, be surrounded by a lot of beautiful women and have a good time.”

Jones seemed more optimistic about recycling in the future, defusing the myth that bartenders wouldn’t want to recycle because it would take them longer to get the next drink, leading to fewer drinks served per hour and ultimately to smaller tips.

“I’m sure it could be cost effective, but there’s no motivation on our end now," Jones said. "I would (recycle), I think if we had the time. Most of us would.”

Thankfully we’re not at the point of drinking Solo cups straight from the tap like a frat party, but there is still a long way to go.