BATON ROUGE - The Baton Rouge Gallery is partnering with Glass Half Full, a New Orleans non-profit, to restore Louisiana's coastlines one wine bottle at a time.

The partnership started in June. All glass bottles discarded during the gallery's free First Wednesday events are now collected by Glass Half Full, which recycles the material.

"There's this big series of hammers that crushes all the glass into a few different sizes. There's cullet, which can be turned into new glass products. Sand, which is the majority of what we have, is packed into burlap. We put in recycled burlap from coffee roasteries," Glass Half Full Director of Commercial Sales and Partnerships Ricky Ostry said. "We use it to build berm walls along coastal blowouts."

Ostry said so far, Glass Half Full has recycled more than 10 million bottles and is looking to expand its reach, which is where the Baton Rouge Gallery comes in.

"[First Wednesdays are] an opportunity to connect artists and audiences where we are celebrating a new exhibition every single month. The first Wednesday event is from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. it's free and open to everybody. We'll see 500, 600, 700 people come out on a Wednesday night and enjoy local art in Louisiana's capital," Baton Rouge Gallery President and CEO Jason Andreasen said.

He said the event both supports art and saves the coastline.

"From now on, every wine bottle we went through on a First Wednesday wasn't just ending up in a landfill but actually going to be used to fortify and strengthen our state and its coastline. People really got excited about that," he said.

Glass Half Full said the Baton Rouge Gallery is one of its first collection sites in the capital city.

"The idea is that we could recycle a billion bottles each year, that's what we're aiming for," Ostry said.

Those interested in learning more about glass pick-ups can email pickups@glasshalffull.co for more information.