FRANZISKA TRAUTMANN A woman making an environmental impact through glass By Krysta Kearney Do you love the feel of sand in your toes? Ever thought about what it is made up of? Typically it’s quartz, tiny little crystals of what the earth's crust is made up of. I know, it sounds crazy, right? You would think it would be a lot sharper on your toes than the soft soothing touch we all know. Well, what if sand could be made up of glass? If you can get it fine enough, it would be the same as quartz! Louisiana native, Franziska Trautmann, (along with two others) had the idea in 2020 to turn recycled glass into sand. Now, what kind of crazy idea is that?!! It’s actually quite brilliant, they figured out a way to get one of America’s largest cities to start recycling glass...yes, we said to start, they never had a program before, and on top of that, they turn the glass into sand, repurposing it sustainably to help save Louisiana’s coastline. Leave it up to a bold 23 year old woman to change the course of New Orleans’ recycling program to better the future and make the whole city second think what it means to be sustainable. Trautmann was born and raised in the small town of Carencro, which is on the outskirts of Lafayette, Louisiana. No one really recycled, it just wasn’t a thing that people did. She hardly knew what it was. In most rural areas in the US, especially in the south, there is limited awareness of what recycling is, and in some places, it isn’t taught to children in school. Carencro’s country setting served as a nice childhood as she spent all her time outside, playing with her brother and other neighborhood kids. She never felt alone. As far as recycling goes, she recalls her grandma being the only person she knew that did it.
Nothing was easily accessible in Carencro. In order to get anywhere you had to drive, there was no public transportation, it was even hard to get by on a bike, so the idea of recycling wasn’t even a thought when it came to town planning. It was so small that she attended school in the neighboring city of Lafayette. In elementary and middle school she didn’t feel challenged and it wasn’t the best learning environment for her, so she and her mom one day literally googled ‘Best boarding schools in America’ and she applied to one and got in. It was like that, suddenly she was moving across the country, as a teenager. Then, a total surprise and kind of a miracle in a way, the school paid for her tuition because they didn’t have any students enrolled from the state of Louisiana! It is very uncommon in the south to go to boarding or prep school, no one in her family had done it before, it just wasn’t something that people ever considered as an option. She went to boarding school just outside of Boston, Massachusetts at Phillips Academy Andover and loved it both academically and socially. She excelled and flourished in many ways.
It was a very freeing time, she grew into herself, figured out who she is and her moral compass lead a new pathway in life. As eye opening as it was, in some ways she felt like it was almost too comfortable, how everyone she was surrounded by had a liberal and eco-mindset, whereas in the south she noticed a different outlook, one that was more familiar to her. She likes the diversity in Louisiana and finds inspiration in a community where everyone has different political views and education levels. It’s a setting she thrives in. Also, let’s face it, the New England winters are something else, and the cold weather made her learn very quickly that she didn’t want to stay after graduation, so she looked at colleges in the south and got accepted into Tulane University. This New Orleans private university is known as one of the most well-respected schools in the country. After four years, she obtained her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. “As seniors in college, we were grappling to comprehend two profound issues facing Louisiana. First, that just about every beer or wine bottle we enjoy ends up in a landfill. Secondly, Louisiana loses 100 yards of land, a football field — every 100 minutes due to coastal erosion. We realized we could solve both of these issues with one solution: diverting NOLA’s glass waste from landfills and recycling it into sand and cullet used to restore our coasts.” GFM website In the spring of her senior year, she along with two of her fellow colleagues started Glass Half Full which is a sustainable and ethical glass recycling collection program. It didn’t have anything to do with a college course, it started one day while having a couple of casual drinks that lead to a discussion about the realization that the very glass they were drinking from would end up in the dump. That small conversation ended up sprouting an idea that became a small side project while they were in school. All of them assumed once they graduated that they would move on with their careers, but it ended up taking on a whole new life of its own. “It was essentially a response to becoming more aware of the situation in Louisiana, how little we recycle and starting to realize how easy it could be (well not easy) but someone should have done something by now, essentially was my thoughts about it and we knew glass wasn’t being collected let alone recycled in the entire state. So we decided to take that issue on because Louisiana is known for drinking a lot, especially in New Orleans.” By turning glass into sand and cullet, they are creating material that can be used for flood prevention, hurricane relief, construction, soil mixtures and even commercial flooring. Sand as a material has endless capabilities and the global sand supply is depleting rapidly.
It was the 2019/2020 school year when Glass Half Full launched. That was literally just over a year ago, today. The whole existence of the business has been during the Covid-19 Pandemic. At first, getting the ball rolling was incredibly discouraging. They brainstormed ways of how to ship glass to recycling plants and eventually came to terms that they needed to be the actual recyclers, not just the ‘cupid’. In order for the business to be successful and environmentally conscious, they had to do it on their own. At one point, one of the three founders backed out and moved on to another career, (which she doesn’t blame him) so now, it's she and co-founder Max, along with a whole team of help. It’s interesting that she went to school for chemical engineering and is now running a recycling facility. Who would have ever thought? “I use it in some aspects...in some research that we are doing, to possibly use our sand in coastal restoration and different product avenues. I use it a little, but even I sometimes am like, an expert should do this because I have no experience! Now I’m an entrepreneur, I guess!” For the first year she was constantly putting out fires, learning the business and trying to figure out what worked. Now, over a year in, the business has become more stable. She is feeling comfortable and confident in her role. In the beginning, she experienced imposter syndrome, finding herself in a role that she knew nothing about and questioned even why she was doing it. She didn’t feel qualified. “First realizing that, ‘Ok, I’m experiencing imposter syndrome, it’s common, especially for women.’ Just recognizing that helps me tremendously and I could realize, ‘Ok that’s that… (whatever it may be at the time) and it isn’t a fault of my own,’ and (second) just pumping myself up! Like, ok it's been a year and a half, people actually like it, it’s helping people and teaching people about recycling. Just reminding myself that helps get me through the tough times.” She reminds herself that the worst-case scenario isn’t that bad. If the business fails, what can she do? In order to even get the business up and running, they needed to find funding, so they started a Go Fund Me campaign that was primarily for a recycling machine and a transportation vehicle. Within the first few days, they didn’t have many donors but then after an article was published about Glass Half Full, they ended up raising the whole 25,000! A few months later, they decided to have one more Go Fund Me and raised 100,000. The NOLA community has been so supportive of them from the beginning. It was all the money that they needed to get started. Already they are generating revenue from their glass pick-up program that they have in place for both residents and businesses. They pick up from residents once a month for $25 and for businesses, they pick up twice montly. They also offer a free drop-off program.
The business started in their backyard, in the neighborhood by the college. They quickly realized that they were primarily getting rich and/or white customers and wanted their services to be available to all demographics. In order to tap into a different community, when it came time to buy a warehouse, they strategically found one in another neighborhood that is centrally located and accessible to many, that way they aren’t servicing only one area and they are able to help the community as a whole.
Eventually, they hope to take it beyond Louisiana too. Ideally to other cities in America, then eventually all over the world. For now, the impact on NOLA has been huge. Many businesses are now recycling and finding ways to recycle other items such as aluminum. It’s encouraging people to think about their waste and how they can in general do better. They’ve thought about adding on other recycling facets, having more of an educational aspect and supporting other city recycling programs. There are big hopes for expansion down the road. “We actually had three field trips last week with 5th - 7th graders coming to our warehouse showing them our process, teaching them about recycling in general, what you can recycle in New Orleans and the different options. So education is definitely a huge part of what we want to do.”  For now, they are just donating their glass sand in the form of bags to area residents and businesses around the city to help them sustainably prepare for storms. Some local businesses have been purchasing their glass sand in bulk as well to be used in industries such as sandblasting and terrazzo flooring. Lots of time and energy is being spent on the extensive research on how they can protect Louisiana with recycled glass. They have partnered with ten professors from Tulane University. “The goal is to use our recycled glass sand to restore the barrier islands, marshlands, and certain land that is crucial to our state when storms come. That's our first line of defense, the barrier islands, the marsh, and our state has tons and tons of money to rebuild these islands but dredging barges can't keep up with the amount of sand that's needed for these projects. So our goal is to be able to supplement the dredged sand with glass sand to be able to continue these projects at the rate that we need to in order to not sink into the Gulf of Mexico.” For Trautmann, we only see a very bright future ahead. As a young woman entrepreneur, there is so much opportunity in her future. Prior to Glass Half Full, she had envisioned getting her PhD in Chemical Engineering or some type of science but for now, she is happy with where she is at. Never did she see herself as a young woman entrepreneur and boss! It is suiting her very well and she is starting to see the payoff of her efforts. Eventually, she can see herself branching out from just glass recycling but staying in the sustainability sphere, it’s just a matter of what and when. The more that she gets involved in the sustainability industry, the more she realizes how large of a global issue glass recycling is. Many major cities around the world have never even recycled glass and some have recently decided to stop their recycling programs! In general, most of America is very bad at recycling and many programs aren’t cohesive for residents, nor accessible. In her free time, Trautmann actively educates people on recycling through TikTok and other avenues to help spread the word on how we can be better at this together and what simple measures each individual can take on how to recycle. TikTok has been rapidly on the rise to becoming one of the most explored social media platforms. It’s easy-to-use video creation interface has allowed users around the world to get their messages out to the public in whatever creative way they like. The rising trend is helping people like Trautmann show their passions, missions, businesses, and talents and get them out to the world in one place that is accessible to all. Trautmann uses the platform to educate viewers on sustainability, recycling and woman equality. Her tagline states, Queen of Recycletok, 😩 Nola, ✨Forklift Certified✨, which is a pretty good sum of what this woman on the rise stands for. Her videos are fun, engaging, educational and goofy at times! They cover topics such as climate change, simple steps to recycling, facts on sustainability and videos of a woman at work, (#killinit) and what life looks like in a warehouse. Viewers connect to her videos, and the stats show it. She has over 54,000 followers and counting. “My main goal with TikTok is to be able to read a broader audience than I can in New Orleans. I love being able to share my story and hopefully inspire others to take action in their city.” Trautmann says that having so many followers has been very rewarding yet scary at times. She isn’t used to being in the spotlight, so it’s been very eye-opening, noting that the comments have been very interesting as a woman, there are a lot of comments about her looks, when all she is trying to do is talk about recycling. For the most part, it’s all super positive and she loves how she is able to share her thoughts with other people.
*Interested in seeing one of her TikTok videos? Follow this link now to learn about what they do at Glass Half Full! TikTok Link Click Here For now, she is happy and growing in her ownership and CEO role. She finds it very empowering to be a woman in business with today's current political climate, especially in an industrial position. She recognizes that she sticks out, which some people appreciate and others don’t, she deals with a lot of sexism. She explained for instance how the business has a full-time handyman, one of whom she appreciates greatly but the first time he showed up, he only spoke to her business partner Max. He quickly realized that Max knew nothing about machines and the processes of machinery. Now she and he are very close and work side by side often and he has the utmost respect for her. Similar to her landlord, he assumes Max deals with all the industrial work whereas really, he is more the administrative partner and she is a handywoman. “I’ve had such a strange journey because it is something I never saw myself doing but now that I’m in it I love it so much and I love being able to be my own boss and be other people’s boss. It’s a fun and ever-changing role and I think having that option for women, to know that you don't have to go work for someone else, you don’t have to spend your life doing something you don't want to do, you can build your own business, your own career and I think that it’s so important to know that's an option especially for women.” She is grateful that she now has a lot of support from women and community members. The beginning presented it’s challenges. She lacked community support in terms of teaching the little things, such as doing your taxes. Those resources are so important and when they first started it was hard to find. Now that they are a bit more established, they have an overwhelming amount of support. People help her navigate through the world of business and show her the tricks of the trade, without them, she is not sure where she would be. Recently, she joined a community-focused women entrepreneur group and they have shared a wealth of knowledge. “I’m not the type of feminist to say that women are smarter than men or women are superior. I truly believe in people being equal, in equality, and not putting either side down.” Since she was a teenager, she has been passionate about equality and used to frequent women’s marches. Politically she was very active. Sometimes she thinks about how she may have gone down that path, going into the arena of activism. She still feels like with everything that she does, she looks at it with a feminist lens and strives towards equality.
Now that she has been home for some time and owns a business in Louisiana she has a whole lot of home state pride. She promotes how important the diversity of Louisiana is and praises the many cultures and traditions that are celebrated and abided. Going back to her childhood, not growing up with recycling, literally at all, she feels a need to channel that inner child and help her state, the environment and teach others what the importance of recycling is, because she didn’t have that opportunity growing up. Because of this, she doesn’t scold people for not recycling or try to force people into it, she leads by example and shows people what the benefits are. It’s surprising how many people across the country have no idea how to properly recycle, or even know what recycling really means. To many, it's a foreign concept. It’s the biggest message that she wants people to learn from Glass Half Full, what recycling can truly do, that it can save the world that we live in. “I think America in general has been so reliant on having someone else deal with their waste that I think we need to take a good hard look at us doing it ourselves. We’re a small recycling plant, but there could be these little recycling facilities everywhere. It doesn’t have to be these huge 5 million dollar facilities, we could do these smaller community-oriented recycling hubs. We want to show people and government entities that we can do this for this community, we can do it everywhere and make it more manageable.” She is fearless, walking into an industry that is very set in its ways, a code that is hard to break. This young woman is just getting started and look at what she has already accomplished in such a short amount of time! Follow her on Tik Tok to learn more about ways that you can be more sustainable and how you can help the world become a better place. We know one thing, the world is a whole lot stronger with Franziska Trautmann in it!  Q + A Q: What’s the word Moxxi mean to you? “It makes me think of resilience and the resiliency of women. I’m thinking of Brittany Spears right now. She is what I think of as a moxxi girl and thinking about all she’s gone through and how she’s still here, still a woman and still badass, and how she’s gone through that. So I just think of fierce women and how incredible we are and how we can go through so much and still be sexy and moxxi.” Q: What advice do you have for people taking a leap in life? “Knowing yourself, that you’re passionate about what you want to do or what you want to start and believing in that first. That helps you make that leap because then people will just come out of the woodworks. Having that foundation with yourself, knowing your passion (it’s important).” Q: What advice do you have for women? “We’re not taught to be loud, unapologetic, and confident (and that puts a lot of people off) but I think it’s so important to be confident and loud and unapologetic and true to yourself and true to what you are passionate about, I think I’m again just learning how to do that and just starting to do that but it’s so liberating and so much more freeing. Like, I used to be scared because I’m just a young woman with my employees that are older than me in the warehouse. It took some time to gain that confidence in myself but once you have it, it’s so valuable.” Q: Are there any quotes you resonate with? “I don’t know how much you are on Tik Tok but I really love the recent shift towards affirmations. I really love the one that’s ‘I don’t chase, I attract.’ I feel thats a lot of what this journey has been. We didn’t like go after people and say, ‘You need to recycle!!!’ We said we’re going to start recycling and we believe that this is important and then, people came to us. They were like, ‘Yes, you’re right, we should do that!’ I just kinda love that mantra. When you’re true to yourself and believe in what you’re doing, it will come. “ Q: What do you do in your free time? “In my free time I’ve been doing Tik Tok to spread the word about my journey and recycling and things like that.” Q: Do you have any mentors? “I recently found a women’s entrepreneur group in New Orleans which is awesome. So I’ve met a lot of people through that network and they’re just able to give me so much knowledge about running a business.”
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