Charlotte has an innovation barn that wants you to get creative about recycling

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - Let’s rethink how we recycle.

Just about a year ago, we took you to Charlotte’s Belmont neighborhood.  We went inside an old warehouse of a building that was home to Envision Charlotte’s Innovation Barn.

Some boxes, bottles, and cans were pretty much the extent of it.

There was a vision, though. This was going to become a lab. It would be a place to dream up new ways to recycle. It would lay the foundation for a circular economy. It would find new uses for the things we usually throw away. Nothing would wind up in a landfill anymore.

Let’s just say the Innovation Barn has come a long way in the past year. Bright lights, plants and more are starting to fill in the space.

The ideas are flowing. The latest one taps on something Charlotte is known for: its beer. If you have canned pints at home, you’ve probably noticed that plastic topper that holds the cans together in a four or six back.

They are useful, once. They couldn’t be recycled here in Mecklenburg County, until now. Take those caps to the Innovation Barn, and they’ll turn them into bricks. Yes, bricks, like these.

Starting March 1, the Innovation Barn and all participating breweries will have collection barrels on-site for you to drop your caps in.

The Innovation Barn will collect those caps, then turn them into bricks that will help build tiny homes, sheds, anything you can think of.

Jamie Boll talked to Amy Aussieker, executive director of Envision Charlotte, about it.

Jamie: We talk about affordable housing issues, right? Hard to believe your six pack of beer could help that.

Amy: It could.

Jamie: Tell me about this. How did this all come to be?

Amy: CIBA, which is the Charlotte Independent Brewers Associations. They work with all of the independent breweries. They had seen an initiative like this somewhere out in Colorado where all the breweries were collecting these. So, they came to me and said, “Could we do something like that?” I said, not only can we do something with that, we want this material. So, we went and talked to the different brewers around here. And they were like, yes, let’s do it. We have a partnership with Providence Day School, and they bought us a brick mold. We’re going to be able to make basically a cinder block out of this that you can make tiny homes or sheds or anything you use a cinder block for.

Jamie: So, if I put this in the landfill, how long would it sit there?

Amy: Like 100,000 years.

Jamie: Seriously? It doesn’t really break down? I think people probably get confused because they assume you can recycle this.

Amy: Yeah, you can’t. It is plastic bottles with a neck and cartons for milk and things like that. That’s it. So, you really want to pay attention when you are recycling. You do not want to be an aspirational recycler. Yeah, I wish this could be recycled. Therefore, I’m going to put it in my recycling bin. Don’t do that. Just throw it away.

Jamie: What’s the long-term goal here?

Amy: The long-term goal is to divert as much waste from the landfill as we possibly can. We’re at 11% in Charlotte right now. We need to move that needle big time.

Jamie: Has it been stuck there for a while?

Amy: Yes. And it’s declining. All across the country, recycling rates are going down.

Jamie: Why?

Amy: Because of contamination. There’s a whole variety of reasons. But it’s broken. The collection side of recycling is broken right now.

Jamie: You’re disrupting the way we think about recycling and garbage and disposal of things. You’re getting people to be creative.

Amy: Yeah.

Jamie: How exciting is that?

Amy: It’s so cool.

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