Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz identified a glass recycling gap in Louisiana and decided to process glass locally. They researched technology that converts glass back into sand, raised funds, purchased a glass-crushing machine, and set up operations in a fraternity house. They organized city collection bins and enlisted friends to sort, de-cap, crush, and hand-sift glass, working long hours. The processed sand was evaluated for practical uses, including restoring Louisiana coastline and addressing severe land loss. The team pursued economic and logistical solutions because sending glass to distant facilities proved impractical.
We were like, 'Hold on this bottle is going to end up in a landfill' because Louisiana had virtually no glass recycling,
We did some small, back-of-the-napkin math on that and realized that would never work economically,
We have some music bumpin', and some people are sorting through the glass and people are taking caps off. There's one person crushing, and the rest of us are, like, hand-sifting the material,
Collection
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