Hawaiʻi’s only marine debris recycling center is running at full capacity after opening last summer. It’s part of Hawaiʻi Pacific University’s Center for Marine Debris Research — and a full-time staff of four is turning plastic trawl nets into building materials, roads and more.
The Conversation recently stopped by the recycling center on a busy day and spoke to Mafalda de Freitas, the megaplastics program director. Federal funding cuts are threatening to send the center out to sea.
Interview highlights
On the different marine plastics that end up at the facility
MAFALDA DE FREITAS: If stage one is when they're taking it out of the environment, stage two is when we receive it and we sort it into the different polymers. Polymers are different types of plastics. This is all trawl nets. It's not nets used in Hawaiʻi. The Hawaiʻi fisheries doesn't use this type of material. It's actually banned around Hawaiʻi. And the long line fisheries uses monofilament long line. And it's not what we receive that actually, because it's so dense, it sinks in seawater. Whereas trawl nets float and they make their way around the Pacific Ocean to the North Pacific Garbage Patch, and then, with the trade winds and the way ocean currents, gyres slowly make their way to the Hawaiian Islands. So it's all foreign fishing gear, foreign trawl nets, is what we're recycling here.
On recycling marine plastics into other products
DE FREITAS: For this facility, it ends at the shredded stage. We are looking to bring machinery to continue on the other stages into a final product. We are collaborating right now with a company in Omaha, Nebraska, that makes plastic lumber. We sent them 400 pounds of our shredded nets, and they have made four different recipes. So one for their boards, and so one is using 100% our fishing nets, and then the other one was 75% our fishing nets, and 25% their post-consumer waste, so your household products you put for recycling. The third recipe was 50-50, and then the fourth recipe was 80% our fishing nets and 20% hard plastic that we receive from beach cleanups. And all boards have proven really successful. They're really impressed with the results. And so what we want to do now is bring those machines here so that we can make those boards here on island, so we don't have to send all these shredded nets to the mainland and then wait to receive boards back.
On the current facility and having to find a new one
DE FREITAS: So we moved in here in June of 2024. Before this, we had a small net shed. It was this shell of a warehouse at the Hawaiʻi Pacific University lower campus over on the windward side. We then moved here to this facility in June of 2024. It is owned by E-Opala, the island's e-waste recycler, who outgrew this and are partnering with us to help us with the business side — how would this work, how does recycling in general work, having access to a shredder as well. So they were very kind to let us move in, and we have really taken over, also very rapidly outgrowing this facility. Because, as you see, every shipment that we bring in, it's a 20-to-40-foot container's worth of material that takes up the entire warehouse that we then have to sort through. … Unfortunately, because of funding limitations and cuts, our lease here is up at the end of November. We need to find a new home — desperately need to find a new home. Not sure where we will go, we're currently in a sprint to fundraise, because the funding for this project, for recycling all this marine debris, ends in March of 2026.
On trying to secure funding
DE FREITAS: We had applied for NOAA Marine Debris Program funding for $10 million, that we felt very confident for, that would help continue all of this effort together with our partners, PMDP (Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project), Kauaʻi, Maui and Big Island. So together with each of those, the funding would have continued us on for the next four years, which we unfortunately did not get. And so we learned that we didn't get it about a month ago now, or in fact, about two weeks ago. Time is a blur at the moment. And so that has led us into a bigger scramble of, oh, OK, what do we do now? And that's when our partner helps with, OK, well, we can stay until the end of November. And then now we're reaching out to everybody that we know, and asking everybody to reach out to their friends and their contacts, even if it's just land space, that we can then set up some makeshift construction to keep this going, because we really don't want to see this stop. It's such important work that is happening, and so we're confident that it'll pull through. It's too important for people not to care and not to want to see it continue.
DE FREITAS: It's for everything, not just the space — all of our team, the entire Center for Marine Debris Research, not just this warehouse, so the lab site that we have as well. So it's all of our staff, and the projects that we have will end in March if we can't secure more funding to keep this important work going.
DE FREITAS: It is definitely big and scary and very sad. I'm a hopeless optimist. I feel too passionate about this to think that others won't feel passionate about this, especially once they come and see the extent of what we receive, the quantities that we receive, the hard work that goes into it. And just to think that all of this, before it was here, it was out in the environment. It was out in the ocean. It was trapping sea birds. It was trapping the monk seals that are now pupping, and so this has such negative impacts on our planet, that how can people not care? And so I'm very positive that somebody will care just as much, even if it's a 10th of what I care, and will pull through, and that something will happen. Not everybody in the team is as optimistic and level-headed as I am. I try to lead by example. And just if everybody's running around panicking, then nothing will get done. So let's do this, one step at a time, one bridge at a time. And it's too important for people not to care, and so I'm confident that even if it's at the 11th hour, something will pull through.
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 5, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.
