Industrial Ecology, Recycling Demand, and Beer

The Kansas City skyline… Just kidding, that’s the Boulevard Brewery

As discussed during the presentation on Industrial Ecology, it is more of a European experiment right now.  However, one United States city does have something that kind of resembles a small piece of an industrial ecological environment.  I have never been more proud to be from Kansas City, nor have I ever been so proud to call Boulevard my favorite brewery.

I have mentioned Boulevard on this blog previously.  I mentioned that they have carbon dioxide sinks on their rooftops (more conventionally, we might call these sinks “plants”).  This is not their only environmentally friendly initiative.  Their latest initiative is very interesting in that it is a separate company, Ripple Glass.  Boulevard’s beer bottles will now be made out of glass that can be recycled by the company Ripple Glass. Ripple Glass’ website mentions that Kansas City area companies alone use 100 million pounds of recycled glass.  That seems like a lot.  The source of that recycled glass has been imported from around the country.  The new Ripple Glass company could provide a local source of that recycled glass.

The benefit is, of course, not just to the economy.  By not requiring as much importation, using a local source reduces the carbon dioxide emitted in transportation of glass.  And, obviously, the clear benefit of recycled glass would be a reduction in the need to mine and otherwise produce glass materials, a process that uses more energy and creates more waste than recycling.

Another way recycling glass helps the environment is by reducing the amount of trash that goes into landfills.  If not for the recycling of glass, I am sure there would be many more beer bottles sitting in a landfill for a significant period of time.  Landfills are a significant contributor to global warming through the release of such chemicals as methane, so it is a good thing if we can reduce their use in any way.  This Boulevard experiment gives some hope in reducing landfills in that it shows that even though landfills are incredibly profitable, there are some companies that see an economic gain to be had in recycling too.

This kind of process is an example of piece of industrial ecology.  It did not require any government intervention (although perhaps there is some tax incentive not advertised on the Ripple Glass website).  Nor is there extensive planning beforehand.  The brewery has been in operation for 20 years this year, but that did not cause a problem in adding a recycling solution.  Perhaps an industrial ecology could be created piece by piece, years after the industry itself was established, rather than being a part of the plans from the beginning.

In any case, this Ripple Glass company is a positive development not only for my favorite beer and city, but also for the industrial ecological movement in the United States.  It is important, though, to remember that it is only one step.  I am unsure about how Boulevard uses recycled material or recycles material such as the water used in the process of fermenting beer.  Surely that process creates waste, and I do not know if they reuse those wastes in any way.  In an idealized industrial ecology, all waste products would find use elsewhere.

There is also the question of how many consumers will recycle in this manner.  An industrial ecology relies on its human members to follow through on their part in the process.  In this case, we need many individual consumers to send in their bottles to this company, or else it is for naught.

Even though I have wondered out loud as to how complete of an industrial ecology this is (it isn’t very complete or close to ideal at all, rather it is more like one small piece), I do think it is a step in the right direction.  Eventually consumers may get in the habit of recycling, similar to how they are in a habit of taking out the trash, and we will not even have to worry about my second concern.  In any case, at worst, the Ripple Glass company will be ineffective.  I do not see it doing any harm on its own.  There is only the chance that it might do great things.