Recycled glass offers a potential new tool to restore a vanishing coastline

Louisiana, the U.S. state, experiences coastal erosion every 100 minutes, losing a soccer field's worth of land. This phenomenon, exacerbated by sea level rise and human activities, has resulted in the loss of 4,662 square kilometers of land over the past century. The state's $319 billion seafood industry, along with coastal communities and ecosystems, faces increasing vulnerability to natural disasters due to vanishing wetlands and altered estuaries.

Louisiana has invested billions in restoration, utilizing offshore sand and river sediment for barrier island and shoreline reconstruction. However, the limited availability of suitable sediment hampers these efforts.

In response to the challenge, Glass Half Full, a New Orleans-based company, has been experimenting with recycled glass as a potential solution since 2020. By transforming used glass bottles into sand and gravel, the company aims to construct small experimental islands and berms for coastal restoration projects. To validate the efficacy of this approach, the company collaborated with Tulane University in New Orleans to initiate Project ReCoast, a five-year research endeavor funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The first study from this research, published in the journal Restoration Ecology in April, revealed no significant differences in the survival rates of native estuarine animals exposed to recycled glass sand as opposed to other materials. However, further research is necessary to determine the long-term environmental impact of introducing recycled glass into coastal restoration projects.