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

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 that 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, where 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.

New life for oilfield trash

Most of Simpson’s plastic comes from Hilcorp, operator of Alaska’s largest oil field on the North Slope, he said.

In the last 18 months, the oil company has donated what he estimates are more than 200,000 pipe-thread protectors.

They’re big plastic caps made from extremely durable plastic that protect the ends of drilling pipes.

They fill mounds of industrial super sacks at a lot that serves as the recycling company’s headquarters in Palmer, alongside marine debris and other plastics.

During the pandemic, Simpson started seriously researching his business idea and looking for federal grants.

He won more than $1 million in grants to help launch the business, from the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies.

Still, the business must profit to survive, he said.

Key to the operation is the grinder and extruder machines to chew up and melt the plastic.

It looks something like a giant Play-Doh spaghetti maker.

Plastic junk enters one side. A melted paste oozes out the other side. It’s shaped into wood-like lumber using metal molds.

The equipment fits in the back of a trailer at a lot in Palmer, where Alaska Plastic Recovery is headquartered.

The gear can be hauled to Alaska communities where it’s expensive to export waste.

He’s gotten about $75,000 in commercial orders so far for Grizzly Wood, he said.

The Bureau of Land Management has ordered picnic tables made of Grizzly Wood. The municipality of Anchorage has also purchased the plastic lumber to upgrade picnic tables, he said.

The Homer Trails Alliance has purchased hundreds of pieces of Grizzly Wood to build such things as a trail boardwalk near the Kenai Peninsula town, he said.

The Grizzly Wood is extremely hardy and does not break down, said Billy Day, a board member with the Homer Trails Alliance.

“We are extremely happy with it, and we will be doing more business with him in the future,” Day said.

‘Dream come true’

The Anchorage drop-off site adds to Simpson’s other drop-off locations, including at his headquarters in Palmer, at 651 E. Steel Loop Road, and in Homer and Seward.

In those locations, he also collect No. 4s, the plastic film like Saran wraps, shrink-wrap, bread bags, store baggies and squeezable condiment bottles.

Alaska Plastic Recovery does not officially accept No. 4 plastics at the Anchorage site, but it might in the future, he said.

Simpson said people who recycle are often passionate about it. One Kodiak man mails him boxes of plastic trash he can’t recycle on the Alaska island, including pill bottles he smashes into small pieces to get more into the box.

Anchorage resident Marjorie Carter, 86, said she’s already made two trips to the Anchorage site to drop off her plastic trash.

She’s rallying her friends, who are gathering up their recyclable waste, too.

She wants to pollute the planet as little as possible.

“It’s a dream come true” to be able to recycle more plastics, she said.

The drop-off site is located at the city’s Materials Recovery Facility, off 56th Avenue near the intersection with the Old Seward Highway.

The entrance is through a gate, just north of the new central transfer station that opened last year at 1310 E. 56th Ave.

The drop-off site is open Thursday to Saturday, from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.

Simpson makes a point to be there on Saturday afternoons to talk with recyclers, he said.

Current plans call for the Anchorage drop-off site to be open through Oct. 31.

Simpson said he hopes to extend that and operate year-round.

“We are having conservations about that now,” said Toth, with Solid Waste Services.