Healthy Seas recycled nylon project casts net further
24/09/2015
This is the first project to be delivered by members of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, which launched in London this month. Partners World Animal Protection, Healthy Seas and Ghost Fishing formed a team of divers, marine researchers and campaigners who will quantify the scale of the waste problem in the Scapa Flow harbour and work to reduce it.
'Ghost gear' refers to fishing equipment that has been abandoned or lost and continue to harm marine animals. An estimated 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear – around 10% of global marine litter – is added to oceans annually.
Diving coordinator for Healthy Seas Pascal van Erp said: “Healthy Seas aims to remove waste, in particular fishing nets, from the seas for the purpose of creating healthier seas and recycling marine litter into textile products. It’s an open initiative which welcomes new partners and creative ideas. We can learn a lot from each other during this trip.”
Healthy Seas partnered Italian yarn manufacturer Aquafil in 2013 to turn nylon 6 in the discarded nets into socks. (See WSA Nov/Dec 2013, and Sept/Oct 2015 for an update on progress).
Image: Ghost fishing gear retrieved from Scapa Flow, Orkney.
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