Queen Anne’s County Partners with Plastic Free QAC, & Marine Trades Association of MD to Encourage Recycling Boat Shrink Wrap
Along with the warm weather every year our boating community starts making preparations to enjoy the water amenities in our area. Many boat owners utilize a special shrinkwrap to winterize their vessels until spring. This unfortunately leads to a large amount of plastic waste heading to our landfill. With over 5,000 recreational boats in our county and estimating that half of these use single use shrinkwrap for winterization that is an estimated 30 tons of waste.
Queen Anne’s County Government recently partnered with Plastic Free QAC and Marine Trades Association of MD (MTAM) to try to minimize the environmental impact of single use shrinkwrap.
Starting this week there will be a dumpster specific to MTAM bagged shrinkwrap at the Grasonville Transfer Station located at 401 Gravel Run Road. The Grasonville Transfer Station is open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 8:00 AM- 4:00 PM. The MTAM dumpster will be available until May 15th.
The only shrinkwrap that will be accepted, must be cleaned of any zippers, windows or ties and packaged in the MTAM recycle bags. The bags are available for sale at West Marine in Chester MD for individual boat owners.
Several local marinas and businesses have also stepped up and are offering the MTAM bags to their clients.
Bay Bridge Marina
Cedar Point
Atlantic Yacht Services
Pocket Yacht Company
Annapolis Yacht Sales
“I like most folks, never really gave it much thought as to what happens to this plastic shrink wrap in the spring that comes off the many boats that we have here located in Queen Anne’s County. When the folks from Plastic Free QAC brought the issue and their concerns to me, and explained without programs like this one, the shrink wrap would end up in our landfills it was easy to get onboard. (pun intended).” said County Commissioner, Phil Dumenil
Plastic Free QAC will be on hand at West Marine in Chester the first three Saturdays in April from 11:00 am- 1:00 PM to help with the sale of the bags, with a limited number of give aways, information and to answer any questions about the boat shrink wrap initiative. Recycling bags are $15 a bag which covers the cost of transportation, baling and getting the wrap to market. Each bag holds the wrap of a boat up to about 35 feet. This is the first year the program has sold bags directly to boaters and the organizers are only offering this in Queen Anne’s County.
“It’s a gamble selling bags directly to the public,” said Donna Morrow, Clean Marina Program Coordinator. “We need boaters to read and follow instructions for this to work. Otherwise, if they don’t the entire load of wrap will be rejected by the recycler and we will not sell directly to boaters in the coming years,” she added.
To learn more about the Clean Marina Program and find many resources for boaters, visit https://dnr.maryland.gov/boating/Pages/cleanmarina/home.aspx
To learn more about Plastic Free QAC, visit https://www.plasticfreeqac.com/
To learn more about our county transfer stations and recycling programs, visit https://www.qac.org/556/Transfer-Station