PPB April 2021

keeping track seemed important to show the impact, and we decided that one million bottles wasn’t enough, so we decided to create the 10 Million Bottle Rescue Mission,” says DelMuro. Thus far, Refresh Glass has recycled about two million bottles. “Refresh Glass was selected as the Recycling Small Business of the Year for our state because of the tons of glass we divert each week that many venues would have struggled to recycle otherwise,” he says. The company’s glasses were also the chosen gift distributed at the first U.S. EPA Recycling Innovation Fair at the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 2019, during a Keep America Beautiful happy hour. Refresh Glass practices a concept known as conscious capitalism; a term that was first described in a book of the same name by John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods Market, and Raj Sisodia, and has since been used to describe consumer companies that are using capitalism as a way to help the community. “Now it’s a community of people who work to infuse purpose and business together; basically capitalism as a force for good,” DelMuro says. Outside of its glass-recycling efforts, Refresh Glass also works with other organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Waste Management and Sustainable Materials. “We love working with schools, charities and other organizations to make our community a better place,” he says. The company donates all of its products that have slight imperfections to Habitat for Humanity where they are donated to the families they are building homes for, or to sell in its ReStores, which sell gently-used and donated items. To date, the company has also hosted more than 10 Refreshing Hours at venues that help collect bottles, a happy hour event with 75 to 100 attendees where all the proceeds go to Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Refresh Glass is also a recycling collection partner with Waste Management on its Waste Management Phoenix Open, which has been recognized as the largest zero-waste sporting event in the world. “I like to think of Refresh Glass as having the heart of a charity and the horsepower of a corporation,” DelMuro says. “Our Refresh Glasses are brought out all the time within the first five minutes of visiting a home or office because the first question people ask their guests is often, ‘Can I get you something to drink?’ Why wouldn’t a host serve those drinks in a glass that is a mission-driven and unique conversation- starter? In the promo world, this is such an asset because it helps the gifter’s story get told more often because the glasses are such a conversation piece.” Four Steps To Making The Glasses 1 Collect empty wine bottles from community partners. 2 Rinse out and clean the used, rescued wine bottles. 3 Melt the rims and stress-relieve the glass. 4 Engrave the glasses, then package to ship. Danielle Renda is associate editor of PPB. Watch the Refresh Glass process in action at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=P_MJTwjUvnk 24 | APRIL 2021 | INNOVATE