Where the Glass Goes

3 Louisiana organizations facilitating new uses for recycled bottles

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Between Mardi Gras and festival season—not to mention Louisiana’s general propensity for booze-fueled good times—myriad glass items find their way into our local landfills each year, contributing to the nation’s billions of bottles already calling them home. According to a recent report, Louisiana ranks at the bottom of states that recycle, with rates in the single digits, about 2-6% depending on the material. In New Orleans alone, only 2% of the city’s waste is recycled, well below the national average of 30%, according to New Orleans reporter Tristan Baurick. Often, cities refuse glass recycling because the material is heavy and breakable and can contaminate other recyclables. For these reasons, the glass recycling process is costly and labor-intensive. While some cities in Louisiana offer an opt-in curbside recycling bin program, more places have few to no resources. Alerted to this issue, organizations have assembled across the state to radically rethink glass recycling. 

Glass Half Full and Glassroots

Co-Founders Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz started Glass Half Full (GHF) in 2020 with a shared bottle of wine, contemplating its ultimate fate in a landfill. Soon they were collecting glass in their community and crushing it in their backyard. 

Today, GHF operates as an L3C, or low-profit LLC, and social enterprise. From its 40,000- square-foot recycling warehouse New Orleans's Bywater neighborhood, Glass Half Full transforms donated recyclable glass into three products: powder, sand, and gravel. The absorbant qualities of powder and sand make them

helpful solutions for flood control in natural disaster-prone Louisiana. GHF’s partner ReCoast uses the material to facilitate coastal restoration projects. Gravel, on the other hand, is valuable for road beds, eco-construction, and rain gardens. In addition, through a partnership with glass artists Travis Laurendine and Andrew Barrows, GHF recycles glass to create limited edition, hand-crafted jewelry and Mardi Gras beads through the business Nola Alchemy. 

Later in 2021, Trautmann founded the 501(c)(3) Glassroots, which focuses on accessibility, education, and outreach regarding Glass Half Full’s recycling operations. The nonprofit aspires to increase access to and raise awareness of the impact of glass recycling through initiatives like a community library of resources (available at the GHF warehouse), and the development of strategic partnerships with local businesses and organizations. Glassroots also presents educational programs on the environment and recycling at schools, for organizations, and through social media. In addition, the nonprofit is building an interactive map of recycling, reuse, composting, and donation sites throughout New Orleans—accessible through their website. 

Together, the organizations facilitate free glass drop-offs at the GHF warehouse (Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays), at New Orleans libraries, and at the Red Stick Farmers Market in Baton Rouge (on the last Saturday of the month). 

“There’s a ton of opportunity for what we can do,” said Glassroots Outreach and Engagement Coordinator Mags Kassel. “Because there’s this lack of infrastructure as a recycling community, we’ve had to come up with creative solutions that are kind of double the benefit in my mind… both reducing waste in a landfill and building back our environment.” 

Volunteers operate the glass drop-off sites, fill sandbags for coastal restoration, assist in clean-up projects, and install rain gardens. They also help to manage the monthly community events Glassroots holds that include trivia nights, documentary screenings at the University of New Orleans, and recycling bin enclosure announcement parties with music and yard games. “The goal is to keep on having more events [so] that people are just able to have fun with the glass recycling process and able to see the joy in the work,” Kassel said.  glasshalffull.co ; weareglassroots.org. 

Glass Act Recycling

In the 1970s, founder Annie Collins’s parents reared her with an early focus on sustainability, and it felt natural for her to carry this way of life to Alexandria where other like-minded community members were rallying to recycle. She started Glass Act Recycling, a 501(c)(3), with a single-bottle crusher at small pop-up parties in 2021. That same year, her organization was selected as the Montessori Educational Center’s project of the year, which gave Collins the opportunity to educate students about the importance of recycling.  

Since then, Glass Act has grown into a full-fledged recycling center where glass is collected, crushed, and repurposed in-house. Volunteers sort glass, maintain the facilities, and assist in pick-up and drop-off services. Though Alexandria residents are invited to drop off their glass for free at the recycling center on Fridays and Saturdays, Glass Act also operates a paid yellow bin glass pick-up initiative currently serving the Alexandria area. Collins is hopeful that she and her team will soon service neighboring communities such as Pineville, too. 

True to its origins at the Montessori school, Glass Act draws in area students with service hour opportunities. Collins said that her team currently works with student volunteers from every high school in Rapides Parish. “It’s their generation,” she said. “We do it for them."

Glass Act has also cultivated a beneficial partnership with Ewing Pools & Spa, one of the largest pool suppliers in the region. The company has committed to use Glass Act’s sand in 100% of its swimming pool filtration systems. Recycled glass filtration has been proven to be more effective than traditional silica sand, and lasts two to three times longer. 

Additionally, sandblasting companies have partnered with Glass Act to use the organization’s OSHA-approved product—which, in addition to being more effective, is a safer alternative for workers, alleviating the damage crystalline silica can cause to the lungs. “Glass has been heated and melted. When it’s crushed down, the particles are rounder on edge, so you breathe it in, you cough it up, and it’s an annoyance, not a hazard,” explained Collins. 

Glass Act also sells glass to artists to use in their studios. “We keep the blue because it’s just gorgeous, and I don’t want to see us waste that beautiful glass.” 

Going forward, Collins is focusing on reducing Glass Act’s carbon footprint to zero with the development of a new, more efficient glass crusher. She also dreams of someday adding a glass art studio in the recycling center. But right now, she is feeling grateful for how far Glass Act has come. “The greatest reward, without fail, is working on the center and the volunteers and the people who come for the first time.” 

glassactrecycling.com.

BackYard Sapphire

Partners and Co-Founders Tina Crapsi and Dawn Vincent—now President and PR Chief, respectively—started BackYard Sapphire as an LLC in 2021 when they saw an unmet need in Lafayette. After the local government stopped recycling glass in 2017, the couple’s hoarded bottles were piling up. Recently, BackYard Sapphire achieved 501(c)(3) status.

Originally a metal worker, fabricator, and blacksmith by trade, Crapsi built her own glass crusher with a gumbo pot, which she monikered “The Annihilator” for its capacity to crush nine wine bottles in seconds. Three years later, through a partnership with Bottle Crusher US, Crapsi and Vincent purchased Louisiana’s largest glass-crushing machine, the AFS Maxi glass bottle crusher. “It can crush twenty tons in eight hours… it could crush our two existing machines!” Crapsi said. Besides ties with organizations like Keep Louisiana Beautiful, Love The Boot, and the Bayou Vermilion Preservation Association, BackYard Sapphire also partners with Lafayette Consolidated Government’s “Build Your Own Sandbags” program and facilitates paid glass drop-off stations on Tuesdays and Saturdays at Fightingville Fresh Farmers Market. “My goal is to recycle all the glass for Lafayette,” Crapsi said. “I just kind of want to go and fill the potholes with our sand.”

“Life is set up so that it’s very challenging to really just live a sustainable life: even if you go out of your way, the cards are stacked against you,” Crapsi went on. For example, she explained, if liquor stores accepted customers’ empty bottles and shipped them back to the factory for refill, BackYard Sapphire would have that much less glass to crush, recycle, and repurpose. 

One way to draw more people into the mission of glass recycling, Crapsi and Vincent have found, is by capitalizing on people’s interest in specialty items. “Being environmentally conscious is not trendy yet, but being unique and having unique things is very trendy,” Vincent said. In addition to creating sand and mulch for landscaping projects, Backyard Sapphire also promotes use of its products in potted plants and fishbowls, as well as in art products like coasters, snifters, cork keychains, and lapel pins. backyardsapphire.com. 

You can support these organizations via community participation, donations, and volunteering. Each offers its own version of glass pick-up services for both residential and commercial customers for a fee. Some even offer other mixed recycling pick-up services to include cardboard, paper, aluminum, and specific plastics. See each organization’s website for more information on rendered services and instructions for donations.