{"id":43250,"date":"2019-07-10T23:43:46","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T03:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=43250"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:36:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:36:30","slug":"green-wakes-fiberglass-boat-recycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/green-wakes-fiberglass-boat-recycling\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Wakes: Fiberglass Boat Recycling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"landfills <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Many tired fiberglass hulls end up in landfills, but a new recycling project aims to give them a new life.<\/span>\n Courtesy of RIMTA<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

Sailing legend holds that the celebrated yacht designer L. Francis Herreshoff commonly referred to fiberglass as \u201cfrozen snot,\u201d a rather pejorative term for one of the easiest and most cost-effective materials afloat for building sailboats. Trouble arises, however, when it\u2019s time to permanently unbend a boat\u2019s sails, since well-crafted fiber and resin lasts virtually forever and is notoriously hard to recycle. As a result, many tired old boats end up as landfill fodder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In fact, the Rhode Island Marine Trades Association<\/a> (RIMTA) estimates that some 1.5 million fiberglass boats were \u00adretired in the U.S. between 2003 and 2012, and that’s saying nothing of the eye-watering toll that’s been extracted by \u00adrecent hurricane activity in weather-battered states like Florida<\/a> and the Carolinas. Fortunately, RIMTA and Rhode Island Sea Grant created the Rhode Island Fiberglass Vessel Recycling Pilot Project to explore ways of sustainably deconstructing glass-reinforced-plastic hulls and recycling the fiberglass into cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The pilot project is currently working with local Rhode Island boatyards to recycle 20 to 30 metric tons of fiberglass, while also partnering with various agencies to create a physical process that meets all local, state and federal health and safety requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

This \u00adrecycled material will be tested in a specialized cement kiln later this year. Additionally, the RIFVR Pilot Project is conducting a cost-\u00adbenefit analysis, researching any legislation and regulations that could be \u00adimplemented to support \u00adfiberglass-recycling programs, and carefully \u00addocumenting the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are continuing to answer critical questions surrounding the life cycle of recreational boats and the sustainable \u00adreuse of fiberglass waste,\u201d said Evan Ridley, the program\u2019s project manager. \u201cBoats constructed with composite materials offer an incredible opportunity for our state to establish a new network for the collection and recycling of high-value waste derived from thousands of other composite-based products currently being landfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

While it\u2019s important to note that the RIFVR Pilot Project is just taking its nascent steps, if things go well, the project could eventually be rolled out regionally and nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Likewise, a project that starts with recreational boats could potentially evolve into a sustainable methodology for recycling all manner of frozen snot.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pilot project in Rhode Island is exploring ways to keep old fiberglass hulls out of landfills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"David Schmidt","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20190710","hydra_display_updated":false,"arc_story_id":"T3DBOHU4CVOMGJCOLZPUZNS6SY","arc_website_url":"green-wakes-fiberglass-boat-recycling\/","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164],"tags":[357,183,328,289],"class_list":["post-43250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","tag-green-wakes","tag-how-to","tag-news","tag-sail-green"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}