Ripple GlassGlass recycling has never taken hold in Kansas City because, despite strong local demand for processed recycled glass, no processing facility existed. And in a real-life chicken and egg dilemma, no one could justify the substantial investment required to establish such a facility because there was no systematic or widespread collection of recycled glass.
Fast forward to 2009 when the people behind wanted to find a way to reduce the amount of glass waste in Kansas City. Each year, some 10 million empty Boulevard beer bottles find their way into the local waste stream and 160 million pounds of glass containers end up in metro-area landfills.
Recycled glass is used to make fiberglass insulation, and the nation鈥檚 biggest fiberglass producer, Owens Corning, has a large plant right here in Kansas City. In addition, Boulevard鈥檚 bottle manufacturer was located just a few hours away in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had a need for recycled glass. So, Ripple Glass was founded as Kansas City鈥檚 first truly local glass recycling company.
Ripple Glass built a state-of-the-art glass processing facility and set out over 60 glass-only drop-off bins around the Kansas City metro to collect glass. The Kansas City metro was not the only city that needed glass recycling, so Ripple Glass also started collecting glass from communities around the Midwest.
Today, Ripple Glass has over 100 glass-only drop-off bins to collect glass from the Kansas City metro. The regional network has expanded to over 100 communities across nine states, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Illinois, and Kentucky. In addition, in 2018, Ripple Glass started commercial collection to recycle glass from bars, restaurants, and businesses in Kansas City.
All of the glass is brought to Ripple's processing facility where the glass is cleaned up, sorted by color, and crushed to our end-user鈥檚 specifications. The brown glass is separated and is sent to a bottle manufacturer who uses the glass to make new beer bottles 鈥� like Boulevard Brewing Company鈥檚! And the other colors of glass are crushed into a furnace-ready cullet and sent over the state-line to Owens Corning where it鈥檚 melted and spun into fiberglass insulation. Since 2009, residents and communities around the Midwest have helped keep over 200,000 TONS of glass out of the landfill!
You can learn more about Ripple Glass and get a behind the scenes look at Ripple Glass' processing facility at .
Interested in starting a glass recycling collection program in your city? Please reach out to Josh Boyer at Josh@rippleglass.com.