Glass recycling has ripple effect in Kansas City

Converting bottles to R-value

March 1, 2010

Owens Corning, Toledo, Ohio, incorporates recycled glass into its Owens Corning Fiberglas® products as part of its sustainability program. In fact, at least half of the insulation content comprises glass, according to the company. Through a strategic alliance with new recycling processor Ripple Glass, and Boulevard Brewing Co. Owens Corning provided the missing link to a recycling system to recycle the brewery’s used bottles, as well as other glass bottles, creating what it calls “America’s first self-contained metropolitan recycling system."

Craft brewer Boulevard Brewery is located in a turn-of-the-century brick building on Kansas City, Mo.’s historic Southwest Boulevard. You might say the building has been recycled—or at least, reused.

It’s not surprising, then, that a brewer that sees value in an old, used building would see value in its used glass containers as well. However, Kansas City’s municipal recycling program does not include glass collection. So the brewery’s glass bottles, as well as other glass bottles and containers, were all headed to the municipal landfill—to the tune of 80,000 tons of glass each year.

Owens Corning, Toledo, Ohio, incorporates recycled glass into its Owens Corning Fiberglas® insulation products as part of its sustainability program. In fact, at least half of the insulation content comprises glass, which is certified by a third party, Scientific Certification Services.

Through a strategic alliance with the new recycling processor Ripple Glass, a private venture founded by three Boulevard Brewing Co. executives, and the Kansas City municipality, Owens Corning provided the missing link in a system to recycle the brewery’s used bottles, as well as other local glass beverage and food bottles, creating what it calls “America’s first self-contained metropolitan recycling system.”

Ripple Glass set up 60 glass-collection sites around the city for the glass bottles and operates glass-crushing and cleaning operations to prepare it as a raw material, called cullets, for Owens Corning. Owens Corning purchases 85 percent of Ripple Glass’s recycled glass and uses the cullets in its nearby fiberglass insulation production facility in Kansas City. This “self-contained” system reduces the greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be created by transporting glass from outside of the region.

The Boulevard Brewing Co. executives who founded Ripple Glass—John McDonald, Jeff Krum, and Mike Utz—said that Boulevard saw itself as part of the problem, contributing about 10 million bottles to landfills each year in the Kansas City area, and wanted to do something about it.

The effort also helps reduce Owens Corning’s energy use and CO2 emissions, because melting recycled glass requires significantly less energy than manufacturing new glass, the company said. That the recycled glass ends up insulating buildings to reduce energy consumption is just a delicious outer ring of the ripple effect.

“One of the green product attributes that matters most is resource efficiency. This includes using recycled materials, producing products that can be recycled practically, and reducing energy and material use in manufacturing,” said Owens Corning’s Chief Sustainability Officer Frank O’Brien-Bernini. “As we work to green our operations and our products, we are finding ways to drive positive impact up and down the supply chain and in our communities through recycling efforts.”