Glass Cullet Goles into Decorative Market

Tim McCarthy, chairman of Great Harbor Design Center LCC, New York, says he looks at the 20 million tons of glass potentially available for recycling in the U.S. as an opportunity, “not a dirty problem.” That is why GHDC has invested $6.5 million to engineer a distinctive manufacturing plant to make Ice Stone, a unique agglomerate of 83 percent recycled glass in a matrix of concrete. 

The glass for Ice Stone originates in New York City and is shipped to states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania for initial processing, as New York has virtually no full-time glass processors, McCarthy says. “The glass is traceable. We get the glass back from different sources, but with a certificate saying that it’s New York City glass.”

Ice Stone begins with clean, color-separated glass that is pulverized to specified sizes. “There’s a [material] built out of the various sizes of glass,” he says. The glass is also washed to remove residual sugar and glue. “We can’t deal with that in the process,” McCarthy says. “The glue would corrupt and the sugars would actually change the formula. So, it is a strict requirement.”

GHDC’s automated process takes this clean, color-sorted glass, adds pigments and additives to suppress the alkali silica reaction, casts the mixture into eight feet by four feet molds and cures the product in as little as eight hours. No epoxy is used in the manufacture of Ice Stone. Without the organic epoxy, Ice Stone is fully fire-resistant, McCarthy says.

The product is resistant to alkaline and acid environments and its strength increases with time, according to company promotional material.

“Once it comes out of the curing chamber, it’s very akin to the handling of high-end stone material,” McCarthy says. “Two very good parallels are high-end marble and granite. It doesn’t look, walk or talk like a cheaper tile material.”

The manufacturing plant will ultimately employ 150 to 200 people and has the capacity to make 15 million to 18 million square feet of countertop per year, McCarthy says. “We obviously won’t do that right in the beginning. That’s so we can make sure what goes out the door is exactly as it should be.”

Currently, Ice Stone is suited to interior applications, such as counter tops, wall panels, kitchens, bathrooms and partitions. “We’re not ready for exteriors yet, simply because we want to go through a fairly extensive product testing cycle that we’ll do in the course of next year,” McCarthy says. Prices for the material vary from $25 to $50 per square foot, depending on color.

Ice Stone production began nine months ago, though McCarthy says the company intends to “start serious shipment somewhere around the first of January.”

The company is currently working with Expo Design Center, the high-end design division of Home Depot, on counter tops and the like.

“We don’t go after low-margin stuff,” McCarthy explains, “because by the time we’re finished with this first plant, we will have put $8 million in. That’s a pretty ferocious investment from stock. The project’s been in the works for seven years. Investors are investors, but they are not Methuselah; they are not going to wait another 10 years to get a return on their money. We’re looking to fill the order book carefully.”

A number of states have contacted GHDC about possible ventures in cooperation with their existing programs that would involve similar manufacturing plants. However, McCarthy cautions that, “You can’t go faster than the music. You’ve really got to start with a plant that works and see how you would amend it if you were going to version two.” McCarthy adds that Cleveland is a likely location for a second manufacturing plant, as the local solid waste district and local lending institutions were very early supporters of the Ice Stone product.

McCarthy says that GHDC is working on projects to incorporate other recycled materials. For example, one project is taking polluted soil from New York Harbor and sterilizing it. This process produces a cementitious by-product that could serve as a substitute for Ice Stone’s current matrix, he says.

“Starting it up is an enormous task. But when you look at the future, I’m anything by pessimistic in the down economy. Waste glass is produced whether the economy is up or down.”

The author is a staff member of Recycling Today Magazine.