Brightmark to recycle boat wrap materials

San Francisco-based Brightmark, a waste solutions provider, has announced that it completed a pilot collection program for boat wraps with a local marine services dealer near the company’s plastics renewal facility in Ashley, Indiana.

Supported by the Northeast Indiana Solid Waste Management District (NISWMD), the project established the viability of diverting used boat wrap—which is used to wrap leisure crafts that are placed into winter storage—from the waste stream. Seasonal boating, watersports and fishing are leading contributors to the local economy with more than 100 freshwater lakes in the region.

“Boat wrap is a pure waste stream that has always been difficult to properly recycle,” says Steve Christman, executive director of the Northeast Indiana Solid Waste District. “This program fits perfectly because it allows us to turn the waste into something of value to boaters.”

The wrap, a linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), is similar in structure to heavy-duty garbage bags and is difficult to recycle as a somewhat contaminated, seasonal material. By collecting the wrap at local marinas, Brightmark says it is ensuring that these wraps do not end up in landfills and are instead being used as a fuel source for local vehicles and power boats. 

The ultra-low sulfur diesel and gasoline blendstocks produced from the boat wrap and other co-mingled plastic waste will be sold to BP where it will then go into the wholesale transportation fuel pool in the Midwest. 

“A lot of our boat owners have asked what they can do with the boat wrap because they want to do right by the environment, but we haven’t been able to give them a good solution,” says Terry Archbold, owner of Dry Dock Marina in Angola, Indiana. “Now we can give them a suitable option and fulfill that need to act sustainably.”

According to a news release from Brightmark, there are plans to expand this program to additional marinas located in the four counties serviced by NISWMD. 

There are more than 11 million boats registered in the United States. A significant portion of those boats need to be wrapped when they are in dry dock during the winter months. The amount of boat wrap removed each year adds up to approximately 110,000 tons of waste, which, when recycled, would equal nearly 21,000 barrels of renewable fuel.

“The numbers show this waste problem goes far beyond just the state of Indiana,” says Bob Powell, CEO of Brightmark. “But to us, it represents one of those really big problems Brightmark was created to solve.”

Brightmark’s plastics renewal process accepts comingled, single-stream plastics and transforms them into fuel and wax. According to Brightmark, the process leads to a 14 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with traditionally captured oil. Brightmark’s first commercial-scale plastics renewal facility in Ashley—which is where the boat wrap will be shipped—will recycle 100,000 tons of mixed plastic scrap each year.