Haines Friends of Recycling recently held its 2nd fish net recycling event this year, on September 29-30. Thank you to everyone who brought in their old nets for recycling so they avoided taking up landfill space, and thanks to the volunteers who helped at the Center.
Like many plastics, fish nets can be recycled to take on another life as raw materials for new products. Seines, trawls, and gillnets are made of recyclable plastic or nylon that is turned into sportswear and shoes, carpet, floor tiles, skateboards, sunglasses, and more. Nike, Adida, Patagonia, and Plastix are some companies that do this. But like all plastics, landfilled or beached nets remain in the environment, un-degraded, for hundreds of years.
Haines saw two other potential hazards of fish nets first-hand this year. During the marine debris clean up at Battery Point in May, a tangled derelict net was removed from a beached log – who knows how long it drifted in local waters, risking boaters and marine life, until a storm left it snagged? More recently, a kitten suffered minor injury when entangled in a net pile for some hours before it was rescued (see Duly Noted, October 5 CVN). These unfortunate situations are avoidable.
Please take advantage of opportunities to recycle everything you can – it reduces our waste stream and landfill space, saves the community money, and might even save your pets.
Molly Sturdevant