Meet the Team Behind: Glass Half Full

Glass Half Full is turning glass waste into a resource—recycling bottles and jars into sand and other materials that help restore coastlines, reduce landfill waste, and protect the environment. Learn more about their work here!

Can you tell me about the need for your work? 

Many people don’t know that a single glass bottle placed in your city recycling bin will result in the entire load being sent to the landfill, where it will never decompose. New Orleans wastes millions of tax dollars per year dumping recyclables in landfills and on importing millions of pounds of sand— a natural resource that is depleting at an alarming rate. Our recycling process provides a sustainable alternative to dredging and mining for sand, which disrupts local ecosystems and costs millions of dollars annually. We are addressing these unnecessary, wasteful, and expensive practices by providing a sustainable alternative. Our ultimate goal is to use our recycled sand to help restore Louisiana's eroding shoreline, which has lost a quarter of its wetlands since the 1930s. 

How did Glass Half Full start? 

One night, over a bottle of wine that we knew would end up at the landfill unless we did something about it, we hatched a plan to combat the lack of glass recycling in New Orleans. We began collecting and hand-crushing our friends’ glass with no expectations for what this would become. As word spread, participation and support grew, and we obtained the resources to move to a location in Uptown New Orleans. After running out of storage space, supporters helped us expand into a larger processing facility so we could scale our operations. We’re now backed by a growing team of staff, volunteers, and community members who pitch in daily to divert tens of thousands of pounds of glass each week from landfills across the Gulf South.

Can you explain your recycling process?

Once we’ve diverted glass from the landfill via our drop-off hubs and collection services, we sort it by color and remove all plastics and metals. We then process the glass by pulverizing it with hammer-mill crushers at our local facility. We sift the crushed product to remove labels and sort the various size distributions. We’re then left with sand products ranging from super soft powder to chunky glass gravel. Finally, we allocate the sand and cullet for a myriad of applications, like coastal restoration, disaster relief, flooring, or new everyday glass products. 

How does Glass Half Full help the local community? 

Before Glass Half Full was created in 2020, there were no glass recycling facilities in New Orleans. Our entire recycling process happens right here in Louisiana— nothing is ever shipped out of the state or overseas for processing. That way, we’re transforming glass waste into a resource that actually benefits the community doing the recycling. We also have the opportunity to create local jobs, all while providing an ethical and sustainable alternative to ecologically harmful sand-mining and extraction practices.