Fuyao Glass America, Strategic Materials sign glass deal

Fuyao Glass America, a manufacturer of glass for the auto industry, has signed a ten-year agreement with the glass recycling company Strategic Materials Inc. (SMI), Houston, to recycle the glass scrap for their recently built facility in Moraine, Ohio. The partnership will create a closed loop recycling process and a sustainable operation for Fuyao Glass.

When the Moraine facility is fully operational it will produce four million OEM car sets as well as four million aftermarket glass (ARG) windshields a year.

Because of the large amount of auto glass the plant produces, Fuyao partnered with Strategic Materials to handle the glass scrap generated. SMI will process the glass and return it back to Fuyao’s manufacturing process, allowing for virtually zero waste and a reduction in carbon emissions by up to 30 percent.

To handle the material SMI is building a glass processing operation on close to four acres at Fuyao’s Moraine plant. In total, Fuyao’s facility will take up around 116 acres.

SMI hopes to have the facility completed by the first quarter of next year, according to Laura Hennemann, director of marketing for SMI. The facility will be capable of crushing, screening and color sorting the glass that it handles. The glass recycler says it is making a significant investment in construction, trucks, process equipment and office renovation for the site. The company will employ 10-12 people at the site to handle the glass recycling operations.

“We are proud to partner with Fuyao. Through our partnership, Fuyao will operate more efficiently while also being a good corporate citizen to the local community,” says Mark Nelson, vice president of sales and supply for SMI’s eastern locations.

“We are pleased to be partnering with SMI,” says John Gauthier, president of Fuyao Glass America. “They will make a great addition to our Moraine location.”

SMI has similar processing and service agreement with other customers, and “We hope to continue to grow relationships like this because it is truly sustainably practice that is mutually beneficial for the companies,” Hennemann adds.

Fuyao Group, founded in China in 1987, established its first manufacturing plants in the United States in 2015. In the past year, the company began shipping glass from its glass manufacturing site in Dayton, Ohio.