Startup recycling company in Louisiana offers solution for glass waste

Startup recycling company in Louisiana offers solution for glass waste.

What'll happen to this bottle of wine after it’s been finished and thrown away?

That’s the question that Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz say they pondered one night. They thought about the bottle's destiny to join the over 11 million tons of glass fated for a landfill.

The Tulane University alumni say they then came up with the idea to turn that bottle back into the glass that birthed it. Two years after Glass Half Full NOLA brought its glass recycling services to New Orleans, Trautmann and Steitz went from crushing beer bottles in their backyard to running a company that they say has recycled over 2 million pounds of glass.

“I was a victim of this mindset before I started Glass Half Full NOLA, which is, ‘individuals can't do anything. It's like all the corporations that need to change and like they are the problem,’” said Trautmann. “Then after setting all of this up, I realized how much individuals can do.”