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Location: Athens, Ohio | Program at Ohio marinas helps recycle plastic wrap
Published on Tuesday, Oct 30, 2007
Beacon Journal staff report
Ohio boat owners are increasingly using plastic wrap to cover and protect their boats from winter weather.
The plastic wrap, cheap and not reusable, typically gets thrown away and that leads to tons of the wrap going into landfills.
But that's starting to change thanks to a two-year pilot program at marinas along Lake Erie, says Gary Comer Jr. of Ohio Sea Grant,
Ohio State University Extension.
The Boat Shrinkwrap Recycling Program, part of the Ohio Clean Marina Program, has collected and recycled nearly a half million
pounds or 240 tons of boat wrap and greenhouse plastic.
That's enough plastic to cover Ohio's 312-mile Lake Erie shoreline with a strip of junk plastic more than eight feet wide, or to cover Ohio
State University's football stadium 13 times, Comer said.
Seventy Ohio marina participated in 2006 and 102 in 2007. They reported $86,000 in savings on trash-disposal bills.
The material was shipped to Mondo Polymer Technologies Inc. near Marietta. It used the plastic to produce about 48,000 posts to
support highway guard rails. Those supports were worth about $114,000.
Ohio has 75,000-plus registered boats in Lake Erie counties and more than 400,000 statewide.
For more information, go to http://www.ohiocleanmarina.osu.edu. | |
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