How Sand Made From Crushed Glass Rebuilds Louisiana’s Shrinking Coast | World Wide Waste

Narrator: You usually
need sand to make glass.

But this entrepreneur

crushes bottles back into sand.

She cofounded what could be

Louisiana's biggest
glass-recycling operation.

And in about two years, she saved

4 million beer bottles' worth
of glass from landfills.

Never let anyone tell you

that individuals cannot make a difference.

Because all of this is thanks
to incredible individuals.

Narrator: Glass Half
Full operates in a state

with a disappearing
coastline, and it's ramping up

at a time when global supplies of sand

are actually running out.

Fran: We are using up
sand at a faster rate

than it can be naturally created.

Narrator: So volunteers
use the crushed-up glass

to help rebuild the coastline.

But is dumping material made

from trash into nature a good idea?

Fran: There's a ton of skepticism,

mostly about the sharpness of the sand.

Narrator: We went to New Orleans

to see how one company is
building back shorelines

with worldwide waste.

Franziska Trautmann
started Glass Half Full

with her boyfriend in February of 2020

while they were still college students.

One night during college,
over a bottle of wine

that we knew would end up in a landfill,

we decided instead of continuing

to complain about the problem

and the lack of glass recycling,

that we would just do something about it.

So we had this idea. That was about it.

No waste-management experience,
no recycling experience.

Narrator: They raised about $18,000

to cover startup costs,
including a machine

that could grind up one bottle at a time.

Crowdfunding in the
beginning was really crucial.

It not only got us money,

but got us a lot of
community support as well.

Max: As this literal mountain
of glass started to form

in a residential neighborhood,

we're like, "OK, we've got
to do something here, quick."

Narrator: Since moving into this warehouse

in August 2020, they've
received a nonstop avalanche

of glass to recycle.

We're receiving so much more glass

than we're able to process,

as you can see by the mountain behind me.

Narrator: Traditional recyclers
send the crushed glass

to manufacturers, which
mix it with other materials

and then melt it all
down to make new bottles.

But Fran says there aren't any
of these facilities nearby.

Fran: And then it doesn't

really make sense environmentally,

because you're spending all of that gas

to send a super-heavy
product four hours away.

Narrator: So they decided
to skip that step.

Fran: The goal was always to be able

to recycle the glass locally.

Narrator: Glass Half Full receives

about a garbage-truckload
of glass per week.

People can drop it off for free
or pay to have it picked up.

Once a can is full,

we will dump it into our glass mountain.

Unless it's a special color,
it'll be mixed into here.

Narrator: Colorful bottles can be turned

into specialty sand that
sells at a higher price.

So this is blue sand made
from Bombay gin bottles.

Artists really love to use it.

People love to use it in their gardens.

Narrator: But most bottles are thrown onto

what Fran calls glass mountain.

So, glass mountain is always
expanding and contracting.

We're always adding glass to it

and taking glass away to be crushed.

Woo!

Narrator: Eventually,
workers scoop the bottles up

with this loader and dump
them into a crushing machine.

Fran: It's metered out
into the conveyor belt.

And it'll go up this conveyor belt

and hit the hammers,
where it'll be crushed

and then turned into sort of

a mixture of sand and gravel and labels.

Narrator: The pulverizer leaves behind

some larger chunks of glass
that are too big to use.

Everything that's bigger
than three-eights of an inch

will be taken out.

So that'll include labels, metals, caps.

Anything non-glass will
come out of this process.

Narrator: They're still figuring out

what to do with these leftovers.

The newer models allow you

to send this waste stream
back through the system.

So we're working on raising money in order

to get that new system.

Narrator: For now, it's piling up

in the back of the warehouse.

Can we reuse it?

Can we re-crush it?

How can it be utilized

instead of sending it to the landfill?

Narrator: Fran and Max try to get creative

with all kinds of non-glass
stuff people drop off.

Fran: We separate all the
metal for metal recycling,

and the plastic we're separating
for a special project.

Narrator: Like taking dirty cardboard

that can't be recycled to a
pig farm to become compost.

At the warehouse, some usable
sand is piling up, too,

because one crucial piece
of equipment is too small.

You can really see the difference in size

of this compared to our machine.

So our machine can process a
lot quicker than this can sift.

Narrator: The sifter filters out

any leftover label pieces
and sorts the sand by size.

Fran: And you just scoop
the unsifted product,

put it in the top, and
it'll shake it all down

until it's separated into
each of the five sizes.

Narrator: The largest grains
of glass help pay the bills.

Glass Half Full sells them as gravel.

Some buyers mix it into flooring.

The smallest type of
sand is a fine powder.

Fran: This is, like, the
consistency of flour.

It's extremely soft.

I wish everyone could
touch it and walk on it.

Narrator: It goes into sandbags

the company gives away for free.

Fran: People use sandbags to
put up against their doors,

up against their homes where

anywhere where water could get in,

because we're super
prone to flooding here.

Narrator: In between the powder

and the gravel is coarse sand,

the kind Fran and Max
use to rebuild the coast.

Fran: So this is like the
size we would be using

for coastal restoration.

You can see it's not sharp,
so it's not going to cut me.

Narrator: At an event called a deployment,

the Coalition to Restore
Coastal Louisiana dropped

about 10 tons of recycled
sand along Lake Pontchartrain.

This is the battlefront that y'all
are helping us to protect today.

Thank you for coming.

Narrator: Fran and Max hand
out the sand and burlap bags,

which were donated by
local coffee roasters.

We like being able to
move it with manpower

and kind of get as many
people involved as we can.

It's a really beautiful thing to see.

Narrator: Volunteers
load them onto a boat.

Volunteer: Thank you, Fran.
Fran: Hey, no problem.

Narrator: Then the team drags

the 35-pound bags to the site.

They layer the sandbags in a line,

connecting two pieces of land.

These sacks will biodegrade
in about six months.

US Fish and Wildlife agents returned

with more volunteers a week later

to plant bulrush saplings.

The idea is that the plants will take root

and hold the sand in
place, creating new land.

Fran and Max spent a year
working with scientists

to make sure their product
was safe for ecosystems.

We were awarded a grant

from the National Science Foundation

to work with Tulane University
scientists and engineers

to dive deeper into that research.

Narrator: They found
that sand made from glass

doesn't leach anything into the water

and that plant life can grow in it.

And it actually looks
like it grew the best

in the mixture of the recycled-glass sand

with the native sand,
which is really cool.

Narrator: The researchers haven't tested

whether animals can eat
it yet, but Fran has.

And that's actually been tested on my dog,

who ate a lot of the sand one day.

And we were like —

But she pooped it out, so all good.

Narrator: That's all really good news,

because even though Louisiana's land loss

has been slowing down,
huge chunks of wetlands

could still be swallowed
up in the next few decades.

These areas are essential
habitats for wildlife,

and they help protect nearby
communities from storms.

You can imagine a storm, which is fueled

by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico,

as it begins to cross over
wetlands, it begins to weaken.

Narrator: That's especially
important in New Orleans,

because the city is sinking.

It was built above sea
level in the early 1700s.

But today, about half of it is below.

Meanwhile, rising global
temperatures make storms stronger

and cause ocean levels to rise.

So New Orleans needs all the storm

and flood protection it can get.

If that weren't enough,

there's another problem Fran
and Max want to take on:

a shortage of sand globally.

Fran: And that's because we
use sand in a lot of things.

So concrete, phones, toothpaste, paint,

coastal restoration, sandbags.

Narrator: But you can't use just any sand.

Fran: And it's a sand shortage
of a specific type of sand,

which is a coarser, a
bit more angular sand.

Narrator: That means
desert sand doesn't cut it.

It's too rounded from being
blown around by the wind.

Most industries dredge sand

from the bottoms of lakes and rivers.

Max: Dredging is really the only mechanism

right now to get sand.

Extremely costly, both
environmentally speaking

and fiscally speaking.

Narrator: A lot of it's
used in construction.

Every year, more than 4
billion metric tons of sand

go into glass and concrete for buildings.

Glass Half Full is a long way
from making a dent in that.

Fran and Max hope their
story will inspire others

to make a difference.

Max: I think this is
really more so the story

of a community coming together

to say we demand change, and we're
not going to wait any longer.

Fran: Two individuals
decided to start this,

and now over 2 million pounds
of glass are not in a landfill,

and they're making a
difference in other areas.