Rendezvous River Sports and the Jackson Hole Kayak School are putting kayaks to great use even after they’re all beat-up and out to pasture.
“We are trying to keep every plastic kayak in our region out of the landfill,” says owner Aaron Pruzan. “It’s a great story about trying to be part of the solution.”
A few years ago at the Jackson Hole Eco Fair Pruzan’s team met a farmer from South Dakota who makes fence posts back East in one color — black — who mentioned that kayak plastic is one of the best types of plastic his company Zahntech, can use. A staff member checked out their operation to make sure it was legit and found that it was, so they began working together.
“Mike Patterson and John Regan were game to help with the Pyranha truck, so it all came together, and we did our first run last year,” he adds.
Last year, Pruzan’s team got Vail Resorts to cover the freight because their marina on Jackson Lake lost their entire kayak fleet in a fire. So Pruzan sold them a new fleet and picked up all the burnt ones to recycle. This year, they got a grant that will cover the freight.
Every month, Zahntech receives over 10,000 tons of garbage that otherwise would have gone to the landfill. This rubbish consists of every grade of plastic that would take thousands of years to decompose. Instead, they transform that waste — which, thanks to Pruzan’s team, includes kayaks — into reusable, organically compatible, construction-grade products like fenceposts, which don’t leach into the soil like the arsenic from pressure-treated posts do.
The focus of the boat swap and recycling program, adds Pruzan, is threefold: Reduce: the boat swap encourages people to shop for used boats available before purchasing new; Reuse: boaters can give their old boats a new home where they can be appreciated for years to come (“We see boats at our swap that we sold back in the ’90s and they are still on the water,” he says); Recycle: boats that are broken or unlikely to be used again are cut up and recycled as black plastic fence posts, thanks to the recycling program, which also reduces the transportation footprint by having the boats backhauled on the Pyranha truck on its way back home.
“This year we did a broken boat round-up in conjunction with our boat swap over the weekend, and the response was great,” says Pruzan. “We’ve been stockpiling broken kayaks for close to 30 years, so it’s nice to finally move some along. And this is a great way to do it.”
Partners of the program include Rendezvous River Sports, Jackson Hole Sustainable Business Leaders, Zahntech, Pyranha Kayaks USA, and Bank of Jackson Hole.
