Fish Net Recycling and Marine Debris Information

	Fish Net Recycling & Marine Debris Information	StreamNet Home Page	PSMFC-Home Page	Climate Change Information	T-Shirt Order Form	Feedback
	Essential Fish Habitat	Fish Facts	Fishing Groups Directory	Virtual Watershed Tours	Pacific Marine Estuarine Fish Habitat Partnership

Fish Net Recycling and Marine Debris Information

Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission's Fish Net Recycling and Marine Debris Program has been a long standing program.

It got its start in 1989 to help fishermen comply with requirements of a newly ratified section of an international treaty called MARPOL (for marine pollution). This section, called Annex V, prohibited the disposal of all plastics at sea and established other waste handling regulations. It also required ports and harbors to provide "adequate disposal facilities" to allow mariners to get rid of their retained trash. To help ports reduce their waste disposal costs and to provide more environmentally preferred waste disposal opportunities, PSMFC also promoted the re-use and recycling of fishing nets, metal, wood and other items.

Through grant assistance from National Marine Fisheries Service Saltonstall-Kennedy Funds and then from the Environmental Protection Agency, PSMFC worked with a willing and innovative recycling company in Burlington, Washington to pilot nylon gillnet recycling programs. These programs are still on-going in Seattle, Bellingham, Anacortes WA and Astoria, Oregon. Efforts that had begun in Cordova, Dillingham, Naknek, Petersburg, and Kenai, Alaska in the early 1990s and ran for about 8 years before ending for a variety of reasons have recently been re-invigorated with a grant from National Fish and Wildlife Foundation supported by NOAA's Marine Debris Program.

This Fish Net Recycling and Marine Debris Program provides access to information about this program, a power point presentation, written guidelines for recycling of fishing nets and other fishing equipment, links to other efforts, and background documents are found on this site. Information about this program and its partners are found on this site.