SBIR-STTR Award

The Opportunity. Alaska's beaches are covered with hundreds of tons of Plastic Ocean Waste (POW)that has been deposited into the water from a myriad of counties including Russia Japan Korea China and the United States. There are some collection efforts that focus on removing debris from beaches but there is no effort made toward recycling the POW it is sent to a landfill. There are millions of pounds of POW that could be converted into useful and profitable products. There is also the opportunity to provide rural coastal Alaska communities with revenue generation for both collection and production. The Proposal. Participation in recycling efforts can be improved by offering compensation for the recycled plastics. POW can be collected by local fishers and boaters and brought to port for purchase. Ocean Bound Plastic (OBP) can be collected through residential recycling programs that offer compensation for sorted and cleaned plastics. The challenge is the development of a feasible local recycling system that converts plastics to products. The solution is a Mobile Plastic Ocean Waste Recycler deployed in multiple coastal communities throughout the year. The Approach. In a prior Phase I EPA SBIR we designed two modules for processing POW/OBP: a Polymer Preparation Module for sorting cleaning grinding and drying plastic; and a Recycled Plastic Lumber Production (RPL) module that converts Polyethylene (HDPE/LDPE) Polypropylene (PP) and Polyamide (Nylon) into RPL. However Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is not being used. We propose to utilize this PET as feedstock in the production of solid plastic bricks that can be used for light construction. Also alternate utilities will be evaluated to extend the mobility of these Plastic Ocean Waste Recycler modules to a larger number of remote communities. The Objective. The primary objective during Phase I is to design a mobile PET Plastic Ocean Waste Recycler (POWER) module that is capable of locally producing a Recycled Plastic Brick (RPB) product from the PET retrieved from the POW and OBP. The Benefits. This approach will result in a POW solution that is local and feasible contributing to reduced landfill usage increased local jobs increased Plastic Ocean Waste collection increased local plastics recycling and reduced impact of plastics on the environment. The Team. The Principal Investigator for the proposed effort has successfully commercialized several SBIR efforts. Assisting PKS will be Triverus Alaska's premier machining engineering and manufacturing company.