Alaska Plastic Recovery’s (APR’s) mission is to create useful construction products from recycled plastics. The source material is derived from Plastic Ocean Waste provided by several marine debris clean-up efforts, from residential recycling programs, and from industry. APR’s processing facility is entirely mobile, allowing it to move from community to community where recycled plastics are stored, convert this plastic into useful construction products (e.g. Recycled Plastic Lumber, Recycled Plastic Bricks), and sell the resulting products through local sales channels. This distributed recycling model is ideal for the rural coastal communities common to Alaska.
Alaska Plastic Recovery is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PKS Consulting, Inc (PKS). PKS has received funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), the 49th State Angel Fund (49SAF), and the State of Alaska’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) matching program. EPA has funded the development of the RPL system that was piloted in Seward, Soldotna, and Palmer Alaska. The RPL is produced from High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polypropylene (PP), and Polyamide (PA, Nylon) resins. USDA is funding a parallel processing stream that will convert Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) into Recycled Plastic Bricks (RPB). NOAA has funded the development of a second mobile processing system that can be deployed in coastal Alaska communities and has funded pilots program in Haines and Yakutat.
Alaska Plastic Recovery LLC was formed in November 2020. Initially the company was called Plastic Ocean Waste Solutions LLC, a reflection of its origins. The company was renamed to Alaska Plastic Recovery LLC (APR) in April 2022 to better represent the broader use of recycled plastics.