Haines Science Center and technology advisors will work with Haines Friends of Recycling in an effort to innovate and implement new technologies in recycling, remediation of hazardous materials, and enterprise solutions for converting excess recyclables. These new methodologies will save time and costs as well as produce benefit products.
The recycling program in Haines is amazing! However, more can always be done. The hard part about recycling in Southeast Alaska is that everything needs to be shipped by boat to the Lower 48 for processing. The Lower 48 has the economies of scale to afford the large recycling processing facilities. The Haines Science Center is researching how we can bring smaller-scale processing directly to Southeast Alaska. Some of those small-scale facilities can be here in Haines, while other facilities may already exist in other SEAK towns.
Here is a list of some of the projects HSC has undertaken to improve local recycling and reuse (and alternative products):
- Mushroom inoculate to processing essential goods
- Glass recycling down to usable materials
- Paperboard/low-grade-paper into insulation
- More coming soon! Links to the above coming soon too!