Recycling

Cordova Recycling guide

• aluminum
• fishing web
• plastics
• electronics
• car batteries
• other batteries
• plastic bags
• printer cartridges

over 33 tons of fishing nets diverted from Cordova's landfill

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, over 33 tons of nets were recycled in 2009 and 2010.  The Copper River Watershed Project is overseeing a fishing web recycling effort with assistance from Cordova District Fishermen United, 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 are at the Cordova Harbor and at the City baler facility and have re-opened in spring 2011.  Fishermen are 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 are 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.