Oyster shell recycling means collecting the shells restaurants would otherwise throw out and returning them to the sea. On the plate, a used oyster shell is trash. To a baby oyster, it is a place to live. Alabama has been acting on that idea since 2016. Ten years in, the programme reports more than 31 million shells collected and 120.1 acres of reef restored. Trash at the table has become habitat on the seabed. Nobody built anything new to make that happen. Restaurants just changed where their shells go. According to the Alabama Coastal Foundation Oyster Shell Recycling Program Dashboard, a decade of that small, repeatable change made the difference.
Why would anyone collect used oyster shells?
Oysters harvested from public reefs Image credits : Alabama Coastal Foundation
Young oysters attach to a hard surface to grow, and an old shell works well. Mark Berte, the foundation’s executive director, said the programme was decades in the making. A grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation finally got it started.Before the 2016 launch, the state paid millions of dollars to buy oyster shells back. Cecilia Mace, marketing director at the Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, said most restaurants sent their shells to a landfill. Her restaurant was one of the first to try the programme. The foundation also connects shells to livelihoods. Alabama Gulf oysters support thousands of workers, including oyster farmers. Recycling shells, the foundation says, helps keep the harvest strong.
How does a restaurant shell end up back in the water?
It starts at the table. The foundation asks people to order oysters at restaurants that partner with the programme. After the meal, the shells go into a container separate from the regular trash. The foundation says participating restaurants have their shells collected at least three times a week. More oysters eaten means more shells recycled. A truck takes the shells to the Alabama Marine Resources Division in Gulf Shores. They sit there for at least six months.
What happens after the shells are cured?
Oyster shell processing Image credits: Alabama Coastal Foundation
Cured shells are placed on designated sites in Alabama waters. The foundation calls them the building blocks of newly restored oyster beds. Some shells take a detour through oyster gardening, which Waters coordinates in Alabama and Mississippi. Baby oysters are set on the shells, and the shells go to gardens. The Little Lagoon Preservation Society runs one in Gulf Shores. Once the shells are seeded with baby oysters, they are placed in cages at gardens like the one in Little Lagoon, where the young oysters grow through the warm months of the Alabama gardening season. According to Dennis Hatfield, the Little Lagoon Preservation Society’s president, the season starts around June and usually runs until late October or early November, when the oysters are harvested and carried to closed public reefs in Mobile Bay. The timing matters because oyster reefs have been disappearing for a long time, with about 85 per cent lost worldwide. P. J. Waters, the Auburn University extension professor who coordinates the gardening programmes, said the northern Gulf Coast is one of the last places in the world where restoration can still work, which is why the gardens and the shell programme are built to feed each other.
Who benefits from all this?
The foundation says restored oyster beds give Gulf fish and crabs a place to live. They slow shoreline erosion. They also clean the water by filtering out silt, sediment, and excess nutrients. Anyone who fishes, swims, or lives on the coast gets a healthier bay. Tongers and farmers get a stronger harvest. Restaurants get a better option than the dumpster. Krista Fleming teaches environmental science at Gulf Shores High School. She brings her classes to the lagoon to count oysters by hand. They also calculate what those oysters do for the ecosystem, like filtering water and providing habitat. Hatfield said the students love being out there.
What ten years of shells add up to?
Oysters ready to be transported Image credits: Alabama Coastal Foundation
The programme’s totals stand at 31,707,904 shells collected and 120.1 acres of reef restored. The shells it kept out of landfills would fill 504.2 large dump trucks, which is equivalent to 669 elephants. Those numbers came from the same small routine, repeated week after week. Restaurants set shells aside, and trucks haul them away. Months later, the shells go back in the water. This came from restaurants setting shells aside week after week.
