information from Waste Management

After weeks of picking up marine debris along the Alaskan and Canadian shoreline, the 300-foot-long barge Dioskouroi arrived at its final destination, Seattle, on Thursday, August 6, 2015. A diverse group of governmental, nonprofit and commercial organizations collaborated to implement the complex month-long helicopter and barge operation. Funded in large part by a goodwill gift from the Government of Japan, the State of Alaska contracted with Gulf of Alaska Keeper (GoAK), an Alaskan non-profit organization, to coordinate the complex project. “The tragedy of the tsunami really brought this issue to the forefront and gave us needed resources to put together a large-scale clean-up effort,” said Janna Stewart, Tsunami Marine Debris Coordinator, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Waste Management was among many partners involved in the large-scale cleanup effort to package and relocate the materials to Seattle for possible recycling. “It is an honor to be collaborating with such a committed group of environmentalists, government agencies and businesses,” said Robin Freedman, spokesperson for Waste Management Sustainability Services. “These are the types of projects that we get extremely excited about, we specialize in safeguarding health and fostering sustainability for our region and our world.”

A significant amount of the debris washing up on the coastlines was the result of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The elaborate plan began more than two years ago. “Our organization and our partners removed materials from the harshest and most remote shorelines in the U.S. and Canada and it involved packaging the debris in heavy duty bags and airlifting the bags by helicopter onto the barge,” said Chris Pallister, President of Gulf Keepers of Alaska (GoAK).

The cleanup removed more than 3,400 super sacks, or an estimated 1,000,000 pounds of debris from the U.S. and Canadian coastline. That’s enough debris to fill 36 rail cars. Over the next few days, Waste Management employees will continue unloading the debris and storing the contained sacks on their dock. In a few weeks, local volunteer groups will sort the material for recycling. Trains will transport any remaining materials to Waste Management’s Columbia Ridge facility in Arlington, Oregon, for safe disposal.

While the washed-up debris removed by this project – which includes building fragments, containers, lines and nets, household items and consumer plastics – is stable and not radioactive, it can still pose a threat to humans, wildlife, habitats, and even humans and the ecosystem.