Wine bottles to sand: the TikToker trying to save our coastlines

Known as 'that sand girl' on TikTok, 24-year-old Franziska Trautmann is trying to help restore Louisiana's eroding coastline ... with glass sand.
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The state loses about an American football field's worth of land every 100 minutes because of coastal erosion, so Trautmann and her co-founder, Max Steitz, decided to take action and launch Glass Half Full, the only glass recycling facility in New Orleans.
So far the venture has diverted more than 2.2m lbs of glass from landfills, and the charity is working with scientists to expand its work to other parts of the world experiencing coastal erosion. Sand is the most exploited resource in the world after water but its use is largely ungoverned, meaning we are consuming it faster than it can be naturally replaced.
50bn tonnes of sand and gravel extracted each year, finds UN study ► www.theguardia...
Green teen memes: how TikTok could save the planet ► www.theguardia...
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#TikTok #Sand #CoastalErosion

[@はーぶ-f9u]

Her actions may relive the Earth's environment. ☺

[@roastchicken6456]

That is incredible. All I’m going to say

[@itsmoneyoverbitches]

And I thought glass was always recyclable

[@AdrianBoyko]

“Worldwide, glass manufacturing produces at least 86 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. But most of this can be eliminated when glass is recycled” When it is recycled into GLASS, that is! By recycling it back into SAND (which is what glass is made from) you just necessitate the production of more glass! 😑 Another neat idea would be to figure out a way to reuse glass bottles as… oh, I don’t know… maybe BOTTLES?

[@migger]

we need glass more than bottles

[@christianschmidt6591]

The fact that America is still sending glass bottles to landfill in the year 2022 just shows how unbelievably backward and unsustainable the country' mindset still is. At least this initiative is doing something useful with glass bottles! I was in a g(r)lass-roots school recycling initiative in New Jersey that was a bit similar - in the 1970s!!!!!!! The US is falling behind in just about everything these days!

[@shahabuzafarzubaer6919]

Fantastic work it were to benefit the environment

[@imaspier3]

Ual amazing ideia girl

[@piotrgoacki9070]

Why is the Guardian endorsing this? Of course it's better to recycle glass into glass!

[@shaf60]

COOL 👍👍👍👍👍

[@veniqe]

If that is sand, then breadcrumbs are flour.

[@fcox7015]

is the glass sand safe for the envirroment? is not harmfull to the native fauna? have this doubts :v guess time will tell xd

[@jroysims44]

Franziska is from Loseranna, and that's a strike against her, but she's doing a phenomenal thing, and that is what counts.

[@halphantom2274]

This is the Elon Musk approach to glass recycling. Complete lunacy.

[@migger]

Elon musk is the richest person in the world

[@Doe7251]

This isn't sand its just sharp glass to teach everybody a lesson go play on the beach now

[@migger]

pulverized glass is not sharp

[@veniqe]

​@@miggerIt's also not sand.

[@andreasj7244]

Ah yes, lets use time and energy eliminating glass from supply. The production of glass is the bad part in many ways, and you're kinda incourraging it on some level by making this appear in any way energetically or environmentally better than the alternative: Make new glass from the glass. We need sand, yes. But lets not go get it from the sand we already spent money refining. NA journalism at its peak

[@nbrisset10]

TikTok eventually seems to have a positive effect on the planet!! not on humility though...

[@tuco4386]

Do not shaking ur self ... When you talking 😁🙄