A former fisherman is turning trash into plastic lumber and expanding Anchorage

A recycling company founded by a former Alaska fisherman has begun accepting plastic waste that wasn’t previously accepted for recycling in Anchorage.

Patrick Simpson, owner of Alaska Plastic Recovery, turns the trash into plastic lumber that can be used like wood for building outdoor products.

The Grizzly Wood, as Simpson calls the plastic 2x4s and other beams, lasts far longer than wood, he said. It’s just starting to be used in Alaska for decks, boardwalks, picnic tables, fence posts and other items. It’s similar to Trex composite decking, a well-known national brand which is also created with recycled products, he said.

He recently opened a drop-off point outside the city’s old trash disposal site in Midtown Anchorage, off 56th Avenue and the Old Seward Highway.

Alaska Plastic Recovery is accepting plastic clamshell containers, such as fruit cartons. Those haven’t been collected for recycling in Anchorage since 2019, after a decision by China to stop importing solid waste upended the global recycling industry.

He’s also taking plastic containers under the so-called No. 5 label. Those containers often lack necks and include waste such as yogurt containers, pill bottles and plastic caps. They weren’t previously collected in Anchorage before he began doing so, Simpson said.

In short, the Anchorage drop-off point is accepting all Nos. 1, 2, and 5 plastics, a reference to the identification code stamped on plastic containers.

“We’re thrilled,” said Kelli Toth, acting director of Solid Waste Services, which is providing the facility for the drop-off point.

She said the new program can help extend the life of the Anchorage Regional Landfill in Eagle River. It currently has an estimated four decades of life remaining, though it could last longer as the landfill settles, she said.

It also can help reduce the recyclable waste that Solid Waste Services currently ships to the Lower 48 for processing. More than 1,500 tons of recyclable items were shipped outside of Alaska last year, she said.

“The less that goes in the landfill, and the more we can create a circular economy, the better it is for all of Anchorage and all of Alaska,” she said.

A ‘renewable resource’

If you’re confused whether a plastic item is recyclable, Simpson says to drop it off with him anyway.

He wants to see more Alaskans recycling. And he’d like to reduce the plastic that’s piling up on Alaska’s beaches and that studies show pollutes our bodies with microplastics, he said.

“If you’ve got plastics and you’re willing to clean them, rinse them out and bring them to us, we’ll figure out how to sort through them and get it done,” said Simpson, who lives in Big Lake.

Simpson grew up fishing in Cordova but it often made him seasick. So he says he later became an engineer and a “serial entrepreneur.” His list of business ventures include making unmanned undersea vehicles.

He’s grown disturbed in recent years about the waste collecting on the coastlines of Prince William Sound, were he was raised. He was especially motivated after seeing the “unbelievable” piles of buoys, bottles, buckets and other plastic waste deposited by the ocean on Kayak Island at the edge of the sound.

It’s like a “renewable resource” that just keeps coming, he said.

“The amount of plastic that’s reaching the beaches in Alaska, by my estimation, is somewhere between 75 million and 125 million pounds a year,” he said.

“That plastic is getting beaten into smaller and smaller pieces,” he said. “It goes from what’s called macroplastics to microplastics and then it’s getting deposited up into the brush and it’s going to become part of our food system.”

“So what got me motivated with this was we have got to find a way to show people that that plastic is a resource that we can utilize,” he said.

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