Net Your Problem founder Nicole Baker at the Haines Friends of Recycling Center (Claire Stremple)

Haines fishermen will soon have a new way to dispose of their nets–they can recycle them. Haines Friends of Recycling has partnered with Net Your Problem to offer net recycling in the Upper Lynn Canal.

It’s pouring rain and Nicole Baker is standing between neat squares of stacked smashed aluminum and defunct washing machines. She’s behind the Haines Friends of Recycling warehouse, up to her knees in sea green tufts of used net. But they won’t be here for long. They’re headed to British Columbia to be recycled.

Baker used to be a fisheries observer, one of the scientists on fishing boats collect information about catches. Through that work she traveled to a few ports in Alaska: Kodiak, Dutch Harbor, and Akutan.

“I saw piles of fishing nets that were lying around that were obviously not being used,” Baker said.

“So I had an experience where a non profit group that produced a sneaker out of confiscated gillnets. That was a light bulb moment for me, where I just thought ‘Wow, nets are recyclable! Just like a water jog or a milk bottle or something.'”

She’s working with Haines Friends of Recycling to change the way fishermen and communities think about disposing of used gillnets. In the past, fishermen have only had the option to take the nets to the dump or let them pile up in their yards. Baker founded Net Your Problem, a company that connects communities with systems to recycle used fishing nets.

Molly Sturdevant is the vice chair of Haines Friends of Recycling. She says that there have been spotty efforts over the last 20 or 30 years to get net recycling to catch on, but there hasn’t been anything consistent.

“I think communities run into the logistics of shipping, and making linkages between the fishermen, the waste managers, and the shippers for example,” she said.

That’s where Baker and Net Your Problem comes in. Nylon recyclers are rare, but Baker connected with SOP International, a British Columbia group that recycles the nylon part of carpet. They’ll start accepting gillnets this year. She set up an agreement with Alaska Marine Lines to ship the nets from southeast Alaska to Seattle, where they’ll be trucked the rest of the way.

There are successful net recycling programs in other coastal communities, but the infrastructure hasn’t been present in Southeast until now. Haines friends of recycling unveiled the program at their Earth day celebration this weekend.

“We’ve never had a full load or a plan that really seemed to engage the community and fishermen and get them to bring their nets to us,” said Sturdevant.

Norm Hughes is a commercial gillnetter and marine supplier in Haines. He’s tried gillnet recycling pilot programs here in the past. He says a serious barrier to recycling the nets is all the work  fishermen would have to do to get them ready to be recycled.

“[Fishermen are] just gonna take the easiest path. If they don’t have to strip it and they can just dump the whole thing, they might just do that. But to have someone take a knife and  take two hours take a knife to strip the line off your nets—that’s fifty bucks to pay someone to do that. Everyone has a different values set,” he said.

Hughes says there are 60 permits on the water and he estimates that each has two to four nets. He cycles one of his nets out every year. That’s significant net waste.

“We can do better. And I hope people do,” said Hughes.

“By leading by example by doing this—and me being part of the problem by being a supplier of gillnets to fishermen—I could talk to them and encourage ’em to recycle in town.”

It will cost $15 to drop off nets with Haines Friends of Recycling. Sturdevant says this is cheaper than tossing them out at the dump. Community Waste Solutions declined to share what they charge to take gillnets with KHNS, but did say the nets are processed as inert trash. Hughes estimated it would cost him $25 or $30 for a hundred pound net.