Fiberglass Recycling: A Second Life For Old Boats

When a southwest Florida law enforcement officer determines a boat is derelict or abandoned, that boat joins the ever-growing list on Justin McBride's desk. Executive director of Florida's West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND), McBride checks his list of companies precertified to remove the derelict vessel, and a bid is placed. If the vessel is fiberglass, it's hauled, towed, scrapped of valuable parts, and — with no other options — dumped in a landfill.

The cross-linked polyester and fiberglass composites of the fiberglass hull, ideal for strength and durability for a lifetime on the water, are not biodegradable and will sit in the landfill for centuries. "We've looked into recycling," McBride says, but the local recycling facilities aren't interested. It's cost prohibitive.

American industry is also looking for a solution. Large marinas need to get rid of multiple dead boats; manufacturers are trying to move toward zero-waste products and closing resource cycles. The car and airline industries are working toward fiberglass recycle during the design stage. Even individuals with old hulls on their property face challenges; depending on size and situation, boat removal and disposal can cost upward of $10,000.

In 2018, there were 951,000 boats registered with Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, an estimated 12 million documented boats across the U.S., and 280,000 new powerboats sold nationwide. National Marine Manufacturers Association studies report an increase in sales this year. As new boats are added to our national fleet, and limited landfill space for "end-of-life" fiberglass boats shrinks toward critical mass, the question becomes: What will we do with all of these dead boats and industrial fiberglass waste?

A Second Act

This is a question University of Rhode Island Sea Grant director Dennis Nixon has been asking for years. As head of Rhode Island Sea Grant, Nixon heard one wish repeated over and over during his discussions with boatyard owners, marina managers, and boatbuilders. "They kept telling me, 'We've got to figure out something to do with these old fiberglass hulls,'" Nixon says, "other than smashing them up and taking them to the landfill. It's embarrassing." Rhode Island has only 12 years before its landfills are topped.

URI graduate research student, and now head of the program, Evan Ridley took up the baton on the fiberglass dilemma and in January 2018 launched the Rhode Island Fiberglass Vessel Recycling (RIFVR) Pilot Project. Sea Grant, along with several public and private partners, created RIFVR to research options and solutions to Rhode Island's derelict vessel and end-of-life fiberglass boat disposal problem. Ridley, project manager, tightened the project's scope to exploring the use of dead fiberglass boat hulls as a fuel source for the cement industry.

A Network Model

Ridley modeled his project on the German wind industry, where used giant turbine blades were shredded and burned in cement kilns as an alternative to burning fossil fuels. Germany's viable fiberglass recycling business, Ridley says, is the goal of the Rhode Island-based program. RIFVR's "product" (fiberglass hulls) was tested by a cement factory in South Carolina and deem­ed to be a viable fuel source for the industry. By the summer of 2019, Ridley had developed a multipart fiberglass hull-recycle model:

• Collect: Gather dead boats from Rhode Island marinas, boat haulers, salvage partners, state agencies.

• Prepare: Strip metals and materials of value, which are sent to recycle partners. Remove anything you can get off boat, leaving a bare fiberglass hull.

• Crush and shred: A waste-management partner handles crushing. An industrial shredder reduces fiberglass to 2-inch pieces.

• Deliver: A transportation partner delivers the pieces to a cement partner, which evaluates the fiberglass material (the product) for the kiln.

• Coordinate: Someone needs to coordinate each aspect of the model, keeping the pieces together and the partners engaged and on track. "This was the real eye-opener," Ridley says. "The need for coordination and logistics; the hard work of bringing and keeping the partners at the table."

It Takes A Village

"From a regulatory standpoint, the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation partnered with the RIFVR program and offered advice on how to work within environmental standards," Ridley says. State government helped Ridley understand guidelines and legislative policy.

The cement industry, by taking on a role and accepting the product, helped ignite the project and give it viability, Ridley says. National organizations such as the Association of Marina Industries helped the project get traction and notice, and helped determine how large the dead-boat problem is. Funding from multiple sources, including the Rhode Island Marine Trades Foundation, Rhode Island Sea Grant, 11th Hour Racing, and the BoatUS Foundation (BoatUS.org/Grants), in the form of grants and in-kind contributions, was critical in getting the project off the ground.

Private, state, local, and federal groups, businesses, and industries partnering together is the lifeline of the model, Ridley says. "BoatUS is widely recognized by a large boat-owning population. To have BoatUS take part in what we're doing elevates the platform."

Spreading The Word

Nixon spoke at a national Sea Grant conference and received a strong, positive reaction from Washington and Oregon. Washington is working on its fiberglass boat recycle program, Nixon says. "It's a large boating state with a lot of derelict boats." At press time, RIMTA announced that a NOAA Marine Debris Program grant is allowing expansion of the pilot program into Washington as well as Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine.

Washington's proximity to Geocycle, a waste-management organization owned by international cement manufacturer LafargeHolcim, could be a geographic advantage. Meanwhile, in 2015, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Port Angeles, Washington, a $2 million grant to turn an existing facility into a 25,000-square-foot Composite Recycling Technology Center. The Pacific Northwest potentially has the right mix of partners from the marine industry, government, waste management, and cement industry.

Consumers And Industry

Rhode Island's small size and landfill limits incentivized consumers and industry partners to look for fiberglass-waste alternatives. Larger states with more room and greater landfill resources may not yet feel the pressure the Ocean State is facing, but when they do, Rhode Island could lead the way on the fiberglass recycling front.

"One of the most valuable things we produced out of this is the model," Ridley says. The cement kiln might not be the silver bullet, but it's showing the most potential for the volume of fiberglass that needs to be recycled. We've made great strides," he says, "but it's a long process. The technology may advance and we're hoping the model, framework, and network will be there to provide a template for bringing this new technology to scale."