“Society is defined by what it refuses to destroy.”

In last week’s article about the 1972 Sydney-Hobart, I mentioned my concern about what happens to fibreglass boats that reach the end of their useful life as thousands of new models compete for space in our marinas and harbours every year.

It’s estimated that annually, between one and two percent of pleasure craft reach the end of their life. (This, I think, implies that their life expectancy is between 50 and 100 years, which seems very generous) And of these boats, 95 percent are fibreglass.

Well, it seems like the Europeans are attempting to address this problem.

The following three short articles are optimistic and come from “Boating Business” website, a UK based industry media outlet.  I haven’t heard of any equivalent projects in Australia or New Zealand, but we may well have missed them.  If you know of similar initiatives on this side of the world, then let us know.

New collaboration for composite recycling

19/07/2022

A new consortium has been formed to tackle marine composite recycling.

The new consortium, that has been formed with support from The National Composites Centre (NCC), aims to create the UK’s first glass fibre composites recycling and re-use facility.

“We’re very excited to support this new collaboration. Together, we need get better and smarter, ensuring that the next generation of high-performance composite products enable a cleaner, greener future for us all,” said Will Grocott, head of surface transport at the NCC.

Plastic recycling

Led by Blue Parameters, a Guernsey based marine consultancy, the ‘Blue Composites Project’ will also look at repurposing reclaimed materials and fibres into new composite components, including boats, caravans and wind turbine blades.

Companies that have pledged to support the project include B&M Longworth, Cygnet Texkimp, Scott Bader, Ford UK, Oakdene Hollins British Marine, Gen2Carbon, University of Plymouth, MDL Marinas, Boatfolk Marinas, Maritime UK South West, Truro Recycling, Royal Yachting Association, Peel Ports Group, South Devon College and The Green Blue.

The NCC said that there are an estimated six million boats in the EU alone, 95% of which are made of GRP. Every year, around 1-2% (60,000-120,000) of these boats reach the end of their useful life. Of these, only 2,000 are recycled, while 6,000-9,000 are abandoned.

Recycling old boats is an expensive business, costing an estimated £706 for a 7m (23ft) boat, rising to £1,324 for 10-12m (33-39ft) and up to £13,243 for boats over 15m (50ft) long.

According to the IMO, it is both GRP waste from production processes and end-of-life products that are a huge challenge.

Around 55,000 tonnes of GRP waste is produced from the UK marine sector every year, with the level expected to increase by 10% every year.

5,000 boats dismantled

19/07/2022

The Association for Eco-Responsible Pleasure Craft – APER – has dismantled more than 5,000 since it was set up three years’ ago.

The figures released by the French organisation, which is financed by boat builders, approved dismantling centres, administrations, local authorities and marinas, show 33% of the boats were motorboats, around 32% were small sport sailboats – both monohulls and multihulls and just over 29% were monohull sailboats.

The figures include the dismantling of more than 1,100 boats that have been collected from sailing clubs since a partnership was signed with the French Sailing Federation in 2020, with APER undertaking to finance the transport and processing of old school boats.

“The wrecks, dilapidated hulls and scattered sucker boats on our banks and shores, our gardens, our marinas, are not inevitable,” said Jean-Paul Chapeleau président de l’APER.

“Get rid of, deconstruct, recycle and recovering pleasure boats at the end of their life, this is the mission that APER has set itself, under the impetus of the Federation of nautical industries.”

The organisation works to help boatbuilders and owners from the concept and design including choice of materials through to production and then the end of life of the boat.

The organisation covers boats from 2.5m to 24m that are registered in France. There are 26 dismantling centres across the country.

New marine recycling initiative

13/04/2022

Clean Sailors has launched ReSail - an initiative aimed at prolonging the life of sailing materials and resources.

The platform follows a pilot launched in the South West in 2021 and will allow sailors to search for and find local drop-off points, allowing for products such as sails, bags and sheets to be upcycled and have a new life and purpose.

“We often forget that sails are in fact, highly engineered materials, built to last. We have a massive opportunity to help facilitate the reuse of existing end-of-life sail fabrics,” said Clean Sailors founder and sailor Holly Manvell.

“We launched ReSail to give sails, and other sailing materials, the chance of a longer life, whether again in our sailing world or another industry.

Through better understanding the construction behind such materials, we can significantly reduce the waste that, unfortunately, is created in our industry.”

And she explained that while most materials used for sailing are built to withstand some of the toughest conditions on the planet including UV light, saltwater and wind, they have a time limit on their initial use.

“Currently, for example, 97% of all sails end up in landfill and here at Clean Sailors, we are determined to bring that number down,” she added.

Through ReSail, Clean Sailors also aims to encourage change at the construction stage of sailmaking, working with sailmakers to better understand the science behind the materials used so industries outside of sailing can explore additional uses for them and ultimately prolong the life of the initial materials used.

In Summary

Fiberglass is great stuff, but the industry has shot itself in the foot by building boats out of such a durable material. We can build more marinas to ease the space problem, but that’s costly and difficult to do. Shoreline real estate prices are going through the roof, and environmental hurdles are expensive and time-consuming to overcome. We need a drain hole for old boats. Take them out of the market, cut them up, grind them into little pieces and use them for something else. If old boats go away, the market and marinas automatically have space for new boats, and business booms. Recycling is the answer.