The world is running out of sand. This issue, caused by our ever-growing infrastructure and exacerbated by climate-change driven rise in sea levels and flooding, could result in the extinction of almost half of the world’s sandy beaches by 2100.

To combat coastal erosion, recent college grads, Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz, created the only glass recycling facility in the United States that recycles glass into sand to reintegrate into the environment.