Fishing Web Recycling Will Help Keep Coasts Clean

Since curbside recycling isn't yet available for fishing nets, a group of regional and community organizations are working to bring fishing net recycling to coastal Alaska fishing villages.  Alaskans use about 800,000 to one million pounds of fishing web in their nets per year.  Most old web gets dumped in community landfills, shortening a landfill's useful life and adding expense to municipal operations.  Salmon gillnets and seines are made from nylon, which can be re-processed to manufacture new products like telephones, computer parts, toothbrushes, carpeting and bicycle seats, among others.

In Cordova, the Copper River Watershed Project will be overseeing a fishing web recycling effort with assistance from the Marine Advisory Program, Native Village of Eyak, and the PWS Science Center.  Funding for the recycling is being provided by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Drop-off sites will be created adjacent to the Cordova Harbor and at the City baler facility.  Fishermen will be asked to strip their old, worn-out nets of cork and lead lines, and place the old web in bags to be dropped off.   Nets collected in Cordova will be shipped to Bellingham, Washington where they are baled and loaded in 20-ton containers for shipment to Asia.  In Asia, the nets are chopped, formed into pellets and then used to manufacture plastic products and parts.

Contact the CRWP at crwp@copperriver.org or (907)424-3334 to learn more about where to recycle or to volunteer on collection days.