Windshield Recycling Eludes Many Business Owners
By Abby Bowman
Some things are easier said than done. For auto glass companies in the United States, windshield recycling is one of those things.
Mark Lacy of Lacy Mobile Glass in Franklin County, Missouri, put it simply.
“It’s like Bigfoot,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot about it but never seen it done.”
Lacy isn’t alone. AGRR asked shop owners on an industry Facebook group if they recycled windshields. Most said no.
The Delimma
Bryan Feuchtinger of Ecostainable Auto Glass would love to recycle windshields. He developed his Denver, Colorado-based shop specifically with sustainability in mind. He moved to Colorado 30 years ago because he wanted to pursue an environmentally friendly lifestyle and felt it would be easier in that state.
“That’s how I want to leave my print on society before I die,” Feuchtinger says.
That mission included starting his own auto glass company in 2024. He’d been in the industry for over a decade and felt he could do more for the environment at his shop. Ecostainable’s mobile work vans are electric, and Feuchtinger recycles as much waste from repair and replacement as he can. Despite his efforts, he has found windshield recycling impractical.
“There is no recycling program in Colorado,” Feuchtinger says. “The only way to do it currently would be to ship the windshields out of state. The closest recycling facility I’ve found is in California.”
The windshield-recycling companies Feuchtinger found don’t pick up glass or pay for shops to ship it to them. He’d have to fill a semi-container with windshields to send to the closest facility, which he hasn’t found doable, even with a service fee.
“That’s unfathomable for my company size,” he says.
Zuhair Madanat, owner of Auto Glass Experts in North Carolina, also tried to recycle the old windshields from his two shops. Like Feuchtinger, it was difficult.
“I’ve always been someone who enjoys recycling in general,” he says. “I like to do as much as I can because it’s a little work for a lot of good.”
In Auto Glass Experts’ early days, Madanat contacted recycling facilities in hopes of giving them his old glass. He got the same answer as Feuchtinger. “They told me, ‘Thank you so much, but because of the small glass-recycling margins and the size of your company, it wouldn’t make sense for us to bring a dumpster [for you to put your recyclable glass in] or make trips to collect it,’” Madanat says. He couldn’t realistically bring the glass to the recyclers, either. Auto Glass Experts’ closest recycling facility is in the same state, but the drive between the business’ flagship location in Huntersville and the facility in Raleigh is still too far.
Making it Work
Wyndshyld, an auto glass business in East Cobb, Georgia, is about two hours from the closest recycling facility, a Shark Solutions location in northern Georgia. That’s not exactly close, but owner Glenn Fell says he makes it work.
Fell says he’s been using that facility for around five years. At first, Shark Solutions provided Wyndshyld with a bin to fill. A truck would periodically pick up the windshields. The recycler eventually stopped coming to get the windshields, Fell says, so he took a different approach.
The business puts all the broken windshields and any other laminated glass into a 5-foot-by-10-foot trailer. When that trailer is full, Fell either pays someone to haul it to the facility or takes it himself. It’s extra work, but he says it pays off.
Fell adds a small fee per replacement to offset the extra time and effort of hauling the windshields. Those fees can be an additional revenue source, too. Once he subtracts the trailer’s capital expenditure and other costs associated with the trip, there’s some money left over.
“It is a little bit of a profit center for me,” Fell says. “The only caveat is insurance doesn’t typically cover that charge.”
Fell says that hasn’t created a problem so far. Customers don’t complain about paying a few extra dollars, especially when he emphasizes the importance of windshield recycling. Fell says Wyndshyld is one of the few companies in his market that recycles old auto glass, and that stands out to his customers.
Fell’s woven some aspects of sustainability into his work throughout his career.
“I care about the environment,” he says. “I don’t want landfills as hideous eyesores and the environmental cost of throwing the glass away is heavy.”
Since his business is a reasonable distance from a recycling facility, Fell says bringing windshields there is also the most practical option.
“If I didn’t have a recycling place within a short drive like that, I’d probably be forced to pretty much do the same thing, take it to the landfill myself,” Fell says. “It will take time either way, and I have to pay the landfill to drop off the glass. Shark Solutions doesn’t charge me.”
Fell’s able to make recycling work for Wyndshyld, but for shops like Ecostainable Auto Glass and Auto Glass Experts, things would need to change to make windshield recycling doable. Feuchtinger and Madanat haven’t given up. Feuchtinger hopes to see more recycling facilities built as recycling companies see the demand for their services. Madanat has been speaking with his wholesalers in the hopes they could help with glass collection.
What Happens To Recycled Windshields?
While many shops donate used windshields to police academies or rage rooms (see sidebar on page 36), others take a different re-use approach. AGRR consulted one of the largest windshield-recycling companies in North America to find out what happens to glass once shops drop it off.
Shark Solutions is a Denmark-based company that processes windshields and architectural glass to reuse the PVB (polyvinyl butyral) from the laminate. The company’s website says its North American division deals almost exclusively with windshields.
According to Greg Cornett, operations manager for glass in North America, windshield recycling is very efficient.
“You can’t always get all the components of many recycled items back into the value stream,” he says. “With recycled windshields, we separate the metal and rubber as best as we can … and we have downstream customers that take 100% of the windshield [elements to repurpose].”
Cornett says the PVB alone has many possible uses.
“We turn it back into liquid, and it makes it more robust,” he says. “It’s UV protectant. Some of the military uses it in their uniforms to make it better for soldiers in the field.”
The glass itself is crushed up into cullet. Cornett says the cullet produced by his company mainly becomes insulation.
“Fiberglass companies spin it into the kind of insulation you find in your roof and walls,” he says. “Bigger cullet goes into road reflectors. A couple of optical companies use very fine cullet powder to polish prescription eyeglass lenses. There’s a host of different customers that use our end product.”
Cullet can also be processed into glass beading for polishing, though Cornett says that’s not as common with his customers.
There’s not much that prevents a windshield from being recycled, he says. It has to be single-source, uncolored glass without a lot of organic contamination. The biggest problems occur when people try to mix other kinds of glass, like tempered glass or glass containers, with windshields. That glass doesn’t work for insulation.
Getting Creative
There’s more than one way to dispose of a windshield. Some retailers have found unique ways to give old windshields a new life.
Mark Lacy of Lacy Mobile Glass in Franklin County, Missouri, donates old windshields to a local police academy. Since police sometimes have to fire their weapons while still in their vehicles, Lacy says the academy prepares its cadets with a special training exercise.
“They practice shooting from the inside of a windshield to see how the bullet’s trajectory is affected by laminated glass,” he says.
Lacy says he’s also provided old windshields to local rage-room businesses. Someone he knew started such a business and asked him for some used glass.
“I saved up a truckload of old windshields and dropped them off,” he says.
Darwin Sams of Auto Glass Specialist in Yukon, Oklahoma, also donates old glass to law enforcement. He says he does some work for the local police department, which is how he learned they could use old windshields.
“They’ll come by and pick them up to use for shooting training at the academy,” he says.
Joshua Ramos of Hampton Roads Auto Glass in Suffolk, Virginia, has also given old windshields to the police. He had previously worked for a couple of companies that donated to the police, so when he started his own business two years ago, he decided to do the same.
“It’s not like in the movies where bullets ricochet off,” Ramos says, explaining why the police train officers with windshields.
Law-enforcement officials aren’t the only ones who want to know how it feels to shoot a windshield. Ramos also gives them to local firearm enthusiasts for target practice.
“People want to know what happens when you put a bullet in a windshield,” he says. He’s happy to help them find out.
Abby Bowman is the editor of AGRR magazine. Email her at abowman@glass.com and connect with her on LinkedIn.
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