Unalaska, AK – The city recently shipped 180,000 pounds, or 90 tons, of old fishing nets off the island for recycling. Working with the company Korea Express USA, the city paid to ship the nets to Seattle where the company will sort them and pay to send them to Korea to make new products.

"Recycling is a good thing in this case and it's working out well for us. It works out to be about $181 a ton shipping it out," Public Utilities Director Dan Winters said. That's cheaper than shipping out the junk cars.

Sending the nets out also frees up significant amounts of landfill space. The city used to just bury the old nets. Winters said they are also trying to free up space by buying a grinder.

"We're looking at a grinder right now for the tires and all the wood, the paper, and the plastics that won't be accepted by the recycle company. And we're looking at grinding that up and replacing the gravel that we use for fill at the landfill, which we spend about $100,000 per year on, and replacing it with this ground up material," he said. "Or, if we find someplace that wants ground up tires, we'll separate the tires out, grind them up, and ship them out."

Shipping out whole tires isn't very space efficient or cost effective. The grinder would cost about $300,000 to $500,000 but will pay for itself in about 5 years because the city will not have to buy gravel and will use less landfill space.

Another landfill-saving option considered by the city was an incinerator-like device that "cracked" waste down to its basic elements turned the waste into electricity. Winters said the only units that are currently available require 20 tons of dried trash per day and Unalaska does not produce that much. Smaller units are being developed and if they come on to the market, Winters said the city might consider the idea again.