UVI Scientist Crushing Glass Waste with Recycling Project

Taken from St Croix Source – By Sian Cobb

January 6, 2021
Great news! It won’t be long until the territory will have the ability to convert glass waste into filling for sandbags for hurricane season, thanks to University of the Virgin Islands Marine Scientist Howard Forbes Jr.!

Forbes applied for and received a $50,000 grant from the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands and additional funding from the Ocean Conservancy to be used to purchase five glass crushers. These will be distributed to community partners on St. Thomas and St. Croix.

Forbes is a big proponent of beach cleanups, but feels they are merely a Band-Aid for the real problem, which is preventing littering! And while the crushers won’t solve this problem, at least a portion of glass waste can be diverted away from the landfill used in other applications, with the primary emphasis on using it to fill sandbags sustainably. To date, all of the sandbags that are produced have been done so with beach sand, which is obviously not a sustainable or desirable solution. Crushed glass can also be used for other purposes besides sandbags, such as water and septic filtration, as an aggregate for concrete and asphalt, landfill cover material, decorative countertops, and even building foundations. A ready supply of crushed glass could be less expensive than local construction materials and would help preserve the limited amount of these materials on the V.I. Hats off to Mr. Forbes!!