COPENHAGEN: More big bundles of old fishing nets will soon be on their way from Dutch Harbor to Denmark to be remade into high-end plastics. It will be the second batch of nets to leave Dutch for a higher cause, and more Alaska fishing towns can get on board.
Last summer a community collaborative put nearly 240,000 pounds, or about 40 nets, into shipping vans that were bound for a Danish “clean tech” company called Plastix. The company refines and pelletizes all types of plastics and resells it to makers of water bottles, cellphone cases and other items.
“It seems so unreasonable and not logical to just throw it away when we know that if handling plastics right if sorting and homogenizing it you can actually reuse it over and over again,” said Axel Kristensen, Plastix CEO. The collaboration with Dutch Harbor is the company’s first venture into the U.S., he told radio station KUCB.
As a former fishery observer for five years, Baker had seen massive piles of derelict nets at far-flung Alaska ports, and the story inspired her to find a solution.
It turned out that Adidas can only use nylon nets for its footwear, and fishing gear that targets cod, pollock and flounders is made of different plastics. With guidance and financial help from the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, Baker connected with a taker and charted a course for Dutch Harbor.
