Boulevard Brewing Co., a specialty brewer in the Midwest, adopts lightweight beer bottles and creates a closed-loop bottle source for the brewery in Kansas City, MO. After realizing Kansas Citians were throwing 150 million pounds of recyclable glass into area landfills each year, including some 10 million empty Boulevard bottles, the brewery formed Ripple Glass, a glass recycling company, to help completely close the loop in glass bottle consumption. "Consumers are interested in environmentally friendly products, and we strive to be more environmentally responsible as a company every day," says Jeremy Ragonese, director of marketing for Boulevard Brewing. Jeff Krum, Boulevard's chief financial officer and principal of Ripple Glass, adds: "Boulevard Brewing started Ripple Glass because, despite strong local and regional demand for cullet, there was no meaningful collection or recycling of glass in the Kansas City area." Ripple Glass built a state-of-the-art processing plant and developed a metro-wide collection network with the help of area businesses, community organizations, area citizens and businesses and large companies, including Boulevard Brewery Co.'s bottle supplier Verallia, which use recycled glass.
