The statistics about how much we throw away and bury are staggering. An average person throws away over 1,600 pounds of trash per year. Americans as a whole generate enough waste each year to circle the earth 24 times. 75% of all that trash is easily recyclable, but only 30% of it actually gets recycled. One rescued wine bottle saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours, power a computer for 30 minutes, or a television for 20 minutes.
Thank you so much for being a part of our 10 Million Bottle Rescue Mission.
We were honored to be selected as our state's recycling small business of the year. Funny part about this one is that they asked Ray to design the awards then told him Refresh was getting one, woohoo!
As you will see below we love working with charities, organizations, schools, and others to play our part in making the community a better place. Like the health of your physical systems like your lungs, heart, immune system, or skin, we think that if certain parts of the community suffer so does the body. We center our marketing around our 10 Million Bottle Rescue Mission but in practice it's really important to us that we walk the talk and show up outside of the waste realm where we can.
We have had 10 separate Refreshing Hours where all of the proceeds go to the kids. We make 75 tickets available and invite everyone to join us at one of our collection partner restaurants on a midweek evening. For $10 you get a free drink and a Refresh Glass product. There are also raffle items that are donated by friends that make great prizes. We have sold out every one and they are a blast. We enjoy helping the venue and the children, and hey, who doesn't like seeing their friends mid week...
Refresh Glass is proud to give all of our glasses with minor blemishes to Habitat for Humanity. They get take to their Restore locations or are given to the recipients of their new homes they build. This relationship with them is so rewarding. Word is the glasses go pretty quick.
We piloted a partnership with the Waste Mangement Phoenix Open golf tournament in 2019. It is the world's biggest zero to landfill event. With over 700,000 people who attend the tournament per year, we are so proud to be able to help with the diversion efforts.
We actively work with an organization called Gompers to employ a few of their clients who are on the autistic spectrum when we have project work that they will excel at. It's a win for all involved.
We believe in Conscious Capitalism and have been participating in their events since 2013. Profit and purpose go best together and we enjoy the community's drive to grow, be imperfect, and work to figure things out together.
Refresh Glass has had to overcome a lot of hurdles since the first year in the garage in 2008. As the company founder, Ray is often asked to share how he worked with the team to create market differentiated real world value along with community impact at the same time. Through Plato's Big 3, he offers a solution framework that relates to products, services, employee engagement, and recruitment/ retention strategy that others can apply. Ray has spoken at the Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit in Austin, been the Startup Week Manufacturing Keynote, and has also been the MC for TedX Phoenix.