Raising his brush above the tideline during a beach cleanup in Prince William Sound, Patrick Simpson was amazed to see a kaleidoscope of shredded plastic. Beach debris was nothing new to Simpson, who grew up in Córdoba and was the son of a fisherman, but seeing this tangle of tiny pieces of plastic felt different.
“It’s going to stay there forever, and I don’t know what its long-term effects will be,” he recalled thinking.
As an engineer and entrepreneur, Simpson decided he wanted to find a way to help by starting a new business called Alaska Plastic Recovery.
From food packaging to electronics, it’s hard to avoid plastic everywhere. Recent studies have found that as materials degrade, they break down into tiny pieces called microplastics. Salmon When mussels, can be harmful to human health. But plastic disposal is complicated, especially in Alaska. Most state recycling is often shipped to the 48 contiguous US states for processing and then shipped overseas.
Motivated by the pollution he witnessed, Simpson turned used plastic, such as food and drink packaging, and ultimately plastic debris that ended up in the ocean, to discarded fishing nets and gear into something useful. I dreamed of changing.
Courtesy of Patrick Simpson
“[Plastic’s] It fills up landfills, ends up on beaches, burns up, and pollutes the air. We could do a better job,” Simpson said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic effectively bringing life to a halt in 2020, Simpson used his newfound spare time to apply for funding to develop a new plastic-to-wood recycling project. It took hundreds of hours of research and his eight separate proposals to various federal agencies, but Simpson was finally able to secure it. $100,000 fund Through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) small business innovation research A program that pursues his vision.
With Alaska’s rural areas and limited road network, Simpson knew that the traditional model of collecting plastic from across the state and processing it at a central hub would be prohibitively expensive. So he came up with a way to bring his own treatment facility to the contamination itself.
Simpson worked with America’s Sierra Plastics Company in New York to secure end-of-life equipment and create a mobile recycling facility on a mobile 53-foot trailer.
Turning plastic into a building material isn’t a new concept per se, but April Richards, who helped the EPA decide to fund Simpson’s project, said his innovative design would be a perfect fit for Alaska. rice field. ”
Richards said a business proposal needs to solve a problem, but not create a new one, in order to get support from the agency.
“We want these technologies to be used and have an impact,” she said, noting that Simpson’s plans are commercially promising and that he could acquire the equipment to help Seward, Palmer, It added that it has qualified for an additional $400,000 in funding that will allow it to begin operations in Soldotna.
Simpson’s company also offers potential to help tackle the plastic problem marine debris on a remote coastline.
Peter Murphy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Regional Coordinator, said: Alaskan marine debris It’s not as simple as handing out gloves and trash bags to volunteers on the beach and throwing the trash in the trash. Debris clearing operations can be miles from the nearest community and even further from the road system. Murphy said many landfills in smaller communities are unable to handle large influxes of debris, “so we may have to find alternative disposal solutions that are costly or difficult.” increase.
Simpson repackages mobile processors into smaller 20-foot containers to reach communities far from the road system and process discarded fishing nets, plastic marine debris and used plastic while there. We want to be able to do that, but for now he’s focused on building the market. for his synthetic wood.
Courtesy of Patrick Simpson
of OctoberSimpson made the first 100 samples of the Emerald Green-tinted Two-by-Four from pipe thread protectors he was recycling from North Slope.
He said he’s sending the wood out for third-party testing soon, but envisions it being used for nonstructural projects such as decks, fence posts, picnic tables and raised garden beds. He recently provided a sample to American Fast Freight, a logistics and transportation company interested in using wood as a substitute for wood used to protect cargo.
Today, Simpson costs $1.87 to produce a pound of lumber, and based on Home Depot prices, he charges about $2 a pound, or about $30 for a 2 x 4 that’s 8 feet long. It’s a schedule.
“It’s not going to be an incredibly big money maker,” Simpson said. “But it can go bankrupt.”
He said a site needs at least 50,000 pounds of plastic to make processing financially viable.
Simpson needs help expanding its network of community organizations across the state to convert its growing plastic stockpile into synthetic wood.
Working with the waste reduction group Sustainable Seward has created a connection to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Transfer Facility at Seward. This transfer facility now collects plastic directly for Simpson. “Financially it makes sense,” Simpson said. That’s because you no longer have to pay to ship plastic to a central facility. He hopes to persuade other communities like Soldotna and Homer to do the same and store and process their plastic on-site, reducing transportation and recycling costs for all.
Ben Botger cook inlet keeper First hearing about Simpson’s project through Sustainable Word, he wants to give people in the central Kenai Peninsula the chance to participate in what he calls “exciting new and innovative ways to tackle plastic.” I was thinking.
Inletkeeper helped set up collection points in the Soldotna area at The Goods Sustainable Grocery and Inletkeeper’s Community Action Studio. From this fall, Homer people can also participate. The plastic is the white super sack outside Ocean Drive’s sustainable wear, Alaska Coastal Research Center.
simpson collects plastic Types 1, 2, 4, and 5 – You can mix everything together, but you will be asked to uncap the bottle and clean the food (especially peanut butter and ketchup).
“If you don’t know what kind of plastic it is and if you can recycle it, toss it anyway. ‘We’ll figure it out,'” Simpson said.
Homer’s transfer station only accepts Type 1 screw-top bottles and Type 2 plastics, so this can be used to transport more common household plastics such as certain plastic bags, cartons of yogurt, and containers of clamshell salad greens. This is your chance to recycle.
Henry Leeske, marine litter coordinator at the Alaska Coastal Research Center, said he currently fills about one bag of supersacks per week, but sees this as a great opportunity ahead. . They’re looking for regular commuters in their trucks who might be willing to bring their collected plastic super sacks to Soldotna, offering a small gas reimbursement.
Rieske has a clear picture of the pollution washing up on Kachemak Bay beaches through his marine debris removal and education efforts. Due to the tides and currents in the bay, Rieske said most of the trash that ends up on beaches in the area is local consumer waste. As disconcerting as that may be, “it means we can work it out,” he said.
Not all of the waste that Rieske and other volunteers collect and record along the bay is plastic, but Simpson’s project expands community recycling capacity and turns plastic waste into the Southern United States. Rieske is excited about how it will help dramatically reduce shipping to 48 states and internationally.
“Recycling staying local in Alaska is a big deal,” he said.
