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Particularly when it winds up in the ocean and washes up on nearby beaches, plastic garbage is a worldwide issue that divides Alaska. An engineer from Anchorage named Patrick Simpson wants to take action.
The amount of plastic that gathers on beaches annually, is between 75 and 125 million pounds. “The best-case scenario allows you to receive £500,000. There is a lot of work to be done, therefore I saw this as a chance.”
The chance, is to build a portable device that can melt plastic, force it into molds, and crush it into tiny pieces. Simpson refers to this product as plastic wood.
The technology previously existed, but he was able to scale it down thanks to funding from the Environmental Protection Agency. This allowed him to transport the recycling machine to coastal areas where plastic waste is a problem.
The EPA awarded Simpson an additional $400,000 funding in January to start a pilot program to test the functionality of the portable technology. However, reducing plastic waste would require more than just recycling efforts; it also requires an attitude that plastic does not always need to be thrown away.
Stockpile the plastics in the town, convert them into something practical—in this case, recycled plastic lumber—leave the lumber there to be bought and utilized by the locals, and then move the processing to the next village. And I believe you could handle plastic in that way in six to eight villages per year.
In order to demonstrate the technology to the pupils at Dimond High School, Simpson just brought a demonstration-sized recycling machine there. Dymond already places a significant emphasis on recycling and watershed protection and has been designated as an Ocean Guardian School by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dimond kids cleaned up debris from a beach near Whittier in the fall.