Business Going Green:
Ripple Glass: Bringing recycling solutions to Kansas City

Kansas city residents appreciate the convenience of Ripple Glass, an off-shoot of Boulevard Brewery, whose glass recycling receptacles can be found all over the city. They process all colors of glass together, so recyclers don't have to spend too much time separating the glass at the receptacles.

What happens when one company's waste is actually a valuable product for another company?

Too often such resources end up in a landfill. However, Kansas City's Boulevard Brewery has found a way to make use of its waste by creating Ripple Glass, the area's new glass recycling company.

"Ripple Glass is great product stewardship on the part of Boulevard Brewery, who started it because they were tired of seeing the 10 million bottles they put into the community every year being taken to landfills," says Stacia Stelk, executive director of Ripple Glass. "They found a solution for themselves and for the broader community as well."

Although lots of businesses in Kansas City use recycled glass, Ripple Glass, which rolled out its collection program last November, is the first widely accessible glass recycling program the city has ever seen.

"Glass recycling in Kansas City was so inconvenient before that only 5 percent of the city's glass actually got recycled," observes Stelk. "There was no local processor, so KC residents didn't recycle and businesses shipped in nearly 100 million pounds of recycled glass each year. Now we've solved that problem and created a closed loop system that works within a 100-mile radius."

Stelk — who worked for ten years at Bridging the Gap, a Kansas City non-profit whose projects connect the environment, economy and community — explains that Ripple Glass is an example of by-product synergy, the practice of matching under-valued product streams with potential users: "By-product synergy keeps companies from wasting products they've already put so much energy and money into. This is why projects like Ripple Glass are going to become more common as companies and communities see the great opportunities to keep resources local and to save or make money."

Ripple Glass has done just this.

"It's about making glass recycling convenient, processing it locally and shipping it to a local industry that can use it," explains Stelk, "We process the glass at our facility in the Blue Valley Industrial District and ship it to Owens Corning in the Fairfax district of Kansas City, Kan., to be remanufactured into fiberglass insulation."

The company has brought much praise from city residents.

"The other day I received a handwritten letter from someone thanking Ripple Glass for putting a glass recycling bin in their community. I'm stunned at the outpour of people who are so happy about having glass recycling in the city," says Stelk.

Ripple Glass bins can be found all over Kansas City. Stelk points out "[t]here are on-site recycling bins at 64 locations. The sites range from Harley Davidson to a local liquor store chain. Businesses like keeping the bins because not only do they get kudos for helping the environment, but people are more likely to shop at locations with glass recycling because it's convenient for them."

Convenience is a big success factor for Ripple Glass.

"I think the numerous sites and the fact that you don't have to separate the glass makes people more willing to recycle. I just had lunch with someone who told me that being able to put the glass in the same bin saves them about 25 minutes every time they recycle their glass," says Stelk.

Additionally, Price Chopper sells Ripple Glass bins for consumers to use at home.

"We're almost sold out," says Stelk, who's amazed at how the company has had such a hard time keeping up with the demand for the bins. "We should be getting more by Earth Day [April 22]."

"I know from my work with Bridging the Gap that the effort to get curb recycling for glass in Kansas City was an unsuccessful uphill battle," says Stelk, "That's one of the many reasons I am so excited to see the absolutely positive response to Ripple Glass."

This story was featured in the Apr. 2010 newsletter