So that's what happened to my recycled Coronas

Crushed glass may help replenish Florida beaches

Posted by Sarah van Schagen at 3:06 PM on 30 Aug 2007

Read more about: Florida | recycling | waste

In order to deal with the constant erosion of Florida's beaches, one county has decided to stop building outrageously expensive real estate so close to the water's edge it practically begs nature to destroy it.

Ha, ha. Just kidding. Actually they're looking into replenishing beaches with recycled beer bottles, crushed, of course, into tiny sand-size particles. I bet I know what Annie Lennox would say about this ...

For story: So that's what happened to my recycled Coronas
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Wait a second...

So they're taking a resource that has taken a huge amount of energy to create, and expending even more energy to turn it back into the same material it started out as? And they call this recycling?

"You reduce waste stream that goes to our landfills and you generate materials that could be available for our beaches"

Um, no, you're taking a resource that would have been recycled and diverting it to landfill. Then others that would have purchased this recycled glass will take sand and use fossil fuels to melt it.

Here's an idea. Let the glass recyclers keep their glass, and just have them ship you whatever sand you would have made them melt down.

by Matt G at 3:23 PM on 30 Aug 2007

Sand Quarry akin to Strip Mines.

Kind of a juxtaposition here. To get the sand needed, they would have to destroy environments with strip mines to get the granite and other rocks out that is then crushed to sand. Or maybe we'll just scrape it off the sand dunes in the southwestern deserts. Of course it isn't as cut and dried as that. These mines already exist all over the country but there are many sides to each story and idea.

I personally thought it was an interesting concept and if there was a better solution, I would be all for it. Maybe they should go through their own landfills and pull the glass out that way. It wasn't going to be recycled in the first place so this would be a good way to do that. Though I doubt anyone would think about that.

by wayneluke at 5:13 PM on 30 Aug 2007

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