End-of-life boat collection

Abandoned boats that remain along the shores of lakes, rivers and coasts are being removed for recycling in France and the United States in large numbers. In other European countries, removal of end-of-life boats has started and is scaling up. Funding these operations is a collective effort of industry associations and government. First operations prove positive. Continent-wide recycling is being prepared.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program in the United States provided a 10 million dollar grant in 2023, for a massive clean-up effort to remove abandoned and derelict vessels from US coastal waterways and the Great Lakes. BoatUS, the association of boat owners, received the funds to start the clean-up program.

The first action was to create a database of abandoned boats and their locations. Before taking these boats away and scrapping them, one needs to know where they are. Since 2023, the first end-of-life boats have been collected and scrapped. Last year, the BoatUS clean-up fund paid for the collection and retrieval of over three hundred boats in five states, US territories and one tribal reservation. – Full report