Homer Trails Alliance (HTA) is a nonprofit organization that builds and maintains trails in the Homer area. One of HTA's projects involves maintaining a section of the Homestead Trail on Diamond Ridge that gets especially muddy.
Alaska Plastic Recovery collects plastic materials from marine debris, residential recycling, and industrial waste. APR then uses its mobile processing facility to turn the plastic into usable construction products. One of the products APR sells is recycled plastic lumber made from processed plastics.
“We collect it, shred it, melt it into a paste, and extrude that into forms. And that becomes dimensional lumber. And we call that dimensional lumber ‘grizzly wood,’” Simpson said.
Patrick Simpson founded Alaska Plastic Recovery and serves as the company's president. He says the recycled plastic lumber is denser than tree wood lumber, and using it doesn’t require special tools.
“So this is something that might be used for decking for rails, fencing for garden boxes, picnic tables, park benches, and in this case, which is why we're talking today, using it for trail rehabilitation,” Simpson said.
HTA board member Billy Day says there are a few places Grizzly Wood can be used to improve local trails, including a section of the Homestead Trail.
Day says Grizzly Wood will be used alongside a grid product called “GeoBlock”, which will be topped with wood chips to create sections of the trail.
“At each seam, where we connect the panels, we screw into the grizzly wood, and that helps to float it a little bit, especially in muddy areas,” Day said.
In addition to the Homer Trails Alliance volunteers, AmeriCorps, a federal agency for volunteering and national service will be sending a team of volunteers to Homer later this month (April 28) to assist in this project and other local projects.
Day says the group could potentially use Grizzly Wood for upcoming trail rehabilitation and maintenance projects beyond what’s planned for the Homestead Trail.
Local environmental organization Cook Inletkeeper helped collect plastic for APR by setting up collection bins in Soldotna and Homer. They use type 1, 2, and 5 plastics in Grizzly Wood.
