Glass Half Full was initiated by a college friend from Tulane University in New Orleans two years ago

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Like many great ideas, it starts with a bottle of wine between friends.

"Max [Steitz] and I have been going to Duran [University of New Orleans]. We are in the second semester of our senior year," Franziska Trautmann, co-founder of Glass Half Full, a glass recycling company, told The Independent.

“We drank a bottle of wine and realized that it would end up in a landfill. All our wine and beer were thrown in a landfill because there were no reliable [recycling] options for cities and states.

"We thought, if we can do something with this kind of glass, turn it into something else or recycle it? That's why we came up with the idea of ​​turning glass into sand. Everyone needs sand. It is A resource. After more digging, we realized that there is also a shortage of sand around the world."

Two years ago, college friends founded this company and started collecting glass bottles in their backyard. After raising $150,000 through the GoFundMe campaign, they were able to expand to the processing facility in New Orleans.

The purpose of the bootstrap recycling program is to reduce waste and ultimately help slow coastal erosion by returning glass bottles to the sand. Ms. Trautmann, 24, grew up in the small town of Calen Crowe in southern Louisiana. She said her motivation was that her hometown would lose a piece of land on a football field every 100 minutes.

Due to land subsidence, erosion, and rising sea levels, Louisiana’s fragile coastline is sliding underwater, and sea level rise in parts of the state is 24 inches higher than in 1950. New Orleans, the largest city facing sea level risks, has risen in the United States.

Even a few inches of sea level rise can cause more catastrophic hurricane storm surges. Due to the climate crisis, hurricanes are evolving into more powerful and humid events. Princeton University’s research last month found that Louisiana and Florida may now be more prone to such extreme events.

As with repeated climate-driven disasters, the poorest, most vulnerable, and most deprived of rights are affected first, and most affected.

In the Terrebonne Basin along the Gulf of Mexico, the US government is funding the resettlement of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indian tribe of Charles Island to a higher place because their ancestral islands disappeared under the sea.

Rebuilding natural buffer zones of barrier islands, beaches, and sandbars with sand and sediments is essential in trying to withstand some of the growing effects of hurricanes and rising sea levels.

The extreme storm has already affected Louisiana's sustainable development efforts. After the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans stopped recycling for six years because most of the infrastructure has been destroyed. The most recent Category 4 hurricane Ida struck Louisiana in August and also suspended recycling in the city.

Most glass still accumulates in landfills because there is no regional glass manufacturer to melt it for recycling.

This question explains to some extent the popularity of half-full glass. The company can select glass products from homes and businesses for only $25 a month, and the service has a long waiting list in bars and restaurants in New Orleans.

Ms. Trautmann said that the only thing that slowed them down was the ability of their small team to operate.

"We haven't encountered a demand problem," she said.

There are several days a week, the company also provides free drop-off service. On a recent Saturday, 500 people showed up and they collected 15,000 pounds of glass.

Ms. Trautmann said: “It’s a wonderful thing to see this with my own eyes.” “Mainly people from the New Orleans area, but we also have people from Lafayette and Baton Rouge. We will let families come to them. Children show how to recycle."

In total, Glass Half Full transferred more than 1 million pounds of glass from the landfill.

Franziska Trautmann, co-founder of Glass Half Full, recycles in front of one of their glass mountains

The company relies on paid roadside pickup services to make ends meet. Ms. Trautmann said that the local government of New Orleans supports their work but has not yet provided any financial support. The notable big check comes from the Mike Rowe Foundation ($30,000), and the other $10,000 comes from Corona beer.

Glass bottles are sorted by color, and the corks, caps and caps are separated (the labels are screened out during processing and do not need to be peeled off).

The glass then moves up the conveyor belt, where it is crushed and crushed by the machine. What appeared was a mixture of sand and gravel, which was screened according to its thickness.

Glass Half Full stated that although the average recycling facility throws away about 60-90% of the garbage, they send less than 2% of the garbage to the landfill.

In the name of ecofran, Ms. Trautmann has accumulated 95,000 fans through attractive TikTok videos about her recovery operations.

Two years ago, university friends Max Steitz and Franziska Trautmann founded this company with a bottle of wine

A recent post entitled "Britney Liberty is a Mood"-including the dubbing of the pop star-shows Ms. Troutman standing in front of the warehouse glass mountain and the sand bucket it turns into . This video has been liked nearly 500,000 times.

Half Glass Full sells the sand they use for sustainable construction to floor manufacturers, gardeners and sandblasters. They also used it in sandbags and distributed it to New Orleans residents for free during the hurricane to help prevent flooding.

Large amounts of sand are currently being used to study whether recycled glass can be used to repair miles of coastline.

Scientists are studying the effects of regenerated sand on fish gills and whether native plants can grow in them. Engineering experts are determining the best place to place the sand.

The project involved scientists from Glass Half Full, the National Science Foundation and Tulane and Jackson State University, and the Pointe-Au-Chien indigenous community to restore their land along the Gulf coast.

"This is the region and tribe most affected by Hurricane Ida, and has historically been most affected by the oil and gas [company] dredging canals," Ms. Troutman said.

The Pointe-Au-Chien community’s project lasted until May, when Glass Half Full hopes to start other restoration work near New Orleans.

Ms. Trautmann said: "We are losing this land, we have run out of sand, and we have sent all the glass to the landfill for no reason."

"What if we could solve all these problems with one solution-recycling glass into sand and using it to restore our shores?"

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The final product of glass bottles crushed at a glass half-full processing plant in New Orleans

Franziska Trautmann, co-founder of Glass Half Full, recycles in front of one of their glass mountains

Two years ago, university friends Max Steitz and Franziska Trautmann founded this company with a bottle of wine

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