KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - China is no longer accepting the world’s trash which is creating a recycling crisis in many cities in the United States.
But, glass is one material not included as part of that problem.
Most of it stays in Kansas City, but some of it leaves the metro and comes back as recycled beer bottles.
Every piece of glass people put in to recycling bins get recycled and turned into a new material.
It gets cleaned, separated, some crushed and some reused. Craft breweries in the region use them, including Boulevard Brewing.
The rest of the glass is also crushed into a fine powder and it goes to Owen Corning in Kansas City, Kansas. They are a fiberglass insulation manufacturer.
They re-melt the crushed glass and make the insulation.
Using recycled glass creates less harmful gasses than burning raw material, so glass recycling is good for environment in many ways!
“It’s just as easy as setting aside a container in your house and collecting all of your empty beer and wine bottles, your empty liquor bottles, spaghetti jars, pickle jars, and then taking it to a ripple bin,” Ripple Glass General Manager Michelle Goth said. “Some folks let is accumulate and just take it once a year, so it’s a 20-minute commitment when you think about it.”
Ripple glass currently employs 26 people, but they expect that number to grow as glass recycling does in Kansas City.
