Boat disposal is an ecological bomb. Here’s why

Boating is also among the goals of the European Green Deal to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

Boat disposal, a problem to be solved

How? Solving the huge problem of recycling end-of-life fiberglass boats. The European Boat Industry (EBI), a European association that brings together most of Europe’s boating companies, has launched guidelines to change by 2030 the toxic landfill disposal that is now used, turning a blind eye, virtually all over Europe to dispose of recreational boats.

The keyword of end-of-life boat disposal according to EBI is that of recycling linked to recovery and energy production. Exactly the same is true for other harmful and non-reusable wastes, such as fiberglass wind turbines. But concretely there are no indications yet.

To give you the scale of the problem, EBI estimates that in the EU each year 30,000 boats, out of 6.5 million existing boats, would have to be scrapped for a total of 23,100 tons of toxic waste that today is not known how to recycle. The disposal of old boats is an ecological bomb today, no doubt about it.

In the U.S., fiberglass becomes concrete

But there are virtuous cases of boat fiberglass recycling around the world. Like the one implemented in the United States in Rhode Island (read here). The Rhode Island Fiberglass Vessel Recycling Project is more concrete than the still unclear EBI project to create energy from boat disposal. The U.S. idea is to grind fiberglass to create “clinker” (the “rubble” that is the basic component for cement production, ed.). This system is already in use for recycling fiberglass wind blades precisely and could be a good solution, but it is not the only one.

In Italy a different idea for recycling

In Italy there are those who have come up with other solutions for recycling boats. Like the Tuscan Korec which has developed a process that allows, according to them, to Recover not only up to 99 percent fiberglass but even the organic part of fiberglass (up to 80 percent) in liquid form, which mixed with virgin resin, can again be reused for the construction of new hulls.

Boat disposal, those who build them already recyclable

The problem of disposing of the fiberglass and composite materials from which virtually all boats are made, however, must be addressed at the root. We need to build new boats that are environmentally friendly and easily recyclable.

The possibilities are there. A concrete example is Northern Light Composites, which was established to produce boats with plant-based fibers instead of fiberglass and use recyclable resins. And that has just unveiled a 3.80-meter, ecoFoiler foil dinghy made entirely from recyclable materials.

The theme of eco-building is so topical that students in the Master of Yacht Design program at the Milan Polytechnic University of Technology have designed a 70-foot sailboat with hull and structures made of basalt fiber and balsa, and through the use of Elium®, a thermoplastic resin produced by Arkema, the composite becomes recyclable.