From Pitch to Progress: ECU's Glass Recycling Program Turns Waste into Opportunity
April 17, 2025 by Ada Jobs
By: Sunnie Dawn Baker
In 2018, Dr. Christine Pappas competed in Ada Jobs Foundation’s Big Pitch Competition by promoting grinding glass bottles into sand. She won the Big Pitch that year for Water Technology and Innovation. In 2020, a glass grinder was purchased by the Ada Sunrise Rotary Club through a Rotary District Grant. The next year, she expanded the team to include Joseph Harris and Brian Bahati Oonga Their concept, Community Impact Glass Recycling, highlighted the issues of overflowing landfills and scarcity of sand. They proposed a business to collect glass from the community and grind it into sand, which can then be repurposed for a variety of uses. Now, five years later, this idea has evolved into the ECU Glass Recycling Program, supported by a grant from the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality.
In 2024, Pappas partnered with East Central University and the Oka’ Institute to write the grant. By January 2025, the university appointed Adrian Odhiambo as Director of the ECU Glass Recycling Program. The program has created six jobs, and expects to create more jobs as it grows. Odhiambo says, “This is an opportunity to create employment for young people while giving them new skills and becoming better custodians of our society.” The grant covers employee wages, while ECU supplies everything else in kind, including their workspace, the grinder, molds, protective gear, as well as many other necessities. The community partnerships extend beyond ECU, though. The Holcim cement plant donates cement to them that they can mix with the glass sand to make paving stones. The Lot and Pigskins provide their glass waste to the program and Liquor Stache had a very successful glass collection event. They are gradually expanding the program to manage the growing volume of glass. They currently have four polycarts located at ECU, behind the Lanoy Education Building; community members can drop off their glass recycling there.
According to Odhiambo, many have overlooked glass recycling, despite its importance. There are many reasons for this. For one thing, most single stream recycling services do not accept glass. While people put out recycling bins on trash day, services typically reject glass. So, people tend to think more about plastic, paper, and aluminum when they think about recycling. Also, there is an aesthetic component to this mindset as well. While paper and plastic refuse looks dirty and ugly, glass has a beauty to it that makes it seem “cleaner” in comparison. However, that does not negate the fact that it still takes up a significant amount of space in our already overflowing landfills. Even if the program were to send its recycled glass sand to the landfill, it would occupy 800% less space than whole glass bottles.
Once the program recycles glass into glass sand, it opens up many possible uses. People can use it in almost any situation where they would normally use regular sand, including construction, fracking, and road work. This not only reduces the amount of sand that is mined, but it also keeps the waste out of the landfill, which leads to more environmental sustainability. The program hopes to develop a future partnership with US Silica in Mill Creek. If they collaborate, US Silica could reduce how much sand it needs to mine, leading to more economic sustainability.
While the ECU Glass Recycling Program is building relationships with other businesses and industries for future usage of the glass sand, they are also creating beautiful paving stones. Though they maintain a large inventory, they also accept custom orders. Supporters can purchase these stones for a donation between 10 and 25 dollars. Currently, the program reinvests these funds to help expand its operations. For more information, contact “Glass Recycling at ECU” through Facebook or Instagram.
What began as an entry into a pitch competition has turned into something much more; the ECU Glass Recycling Program has the potential to create jobs as well as promote economic and environmental sustainability. With community support and local partnerships, this program can divert waste from landfills while producing a useful product. For more information, visit their Facebook or Instagram page; scan the QR code below to learn how you can recycle your own glass
Written by
Ada Jobs
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