Ghost fishing waste makes up at least 10% of all ocean debris, killing hundreds of thousands of non-target fish, seabirds and marine creatures (seals, dolphins, sea turtles, whales and sharks). No longer made from cotton or hemp, modern fishing gear is mostly made from invisible plastic, and never breaks down. It includes fishing line and nets and crab/lobster pots.
Most fishing gear is lost accidentally, due to detached buoys, bad weather or being ‘sliced’ from passing boats.
140,000 (protected) marine mammals to die each year in fishing gear. 83% of North Atlantic Right Whales show scars from entanglement.
Ideas to prevent fishing waste including marking gear and reporting lost equipment. Ghost Fishing Solutions, Smelts and Ashored are alternatives to fixed fishing gear, to avoid entanglement.
Private anglers can use Monomaster, which lets you store fishing gear, until you deposit it in a fishing line recycling station (or send it off).
Or ask your council or a local business to sponsor a Terracycle’s Sports Equipment Box (this also accepts fishing rods and nets). Just send everything off, and it’s made into other items.
Litter-Picking Kits and Stations
The 2 Minute Foundation offers a litter-picking station for councils or volunteers. Just take a bag and litter-picker, then return when you’re done. It will help set up a fundraiser for your local council, business or school to sponsor one.
Use with beach litter clean-up kits and knives from a social enterprise where you can report fishing waste (it’s collected by volunteers to make into sunglasses (sustainable sailors apt to dropping them off boats are best choosing biodegradable sunglasses instead).
Report trapped marine creatures to British Divers Marine Life Rescue.
Volunteer Divers (and Dry-Land Sorters!)
Neptune’s Army of Rubbish Cleaners has volunteer divers nationwide, who recover fishing waste to kitchen sinks (which they do find). If you don’t fancy jumping in the sea with weights attached, it welcomes dry-land volunteers to collect and sort the rubbish for recycling.
As well as often finding (released) live creatures abandoned in crab and lobster pots, it also finds glass bottles, tin cans, spark plugs, umbrellas, golf balls and torch batteries.
Litter-Picking Fishing Boat Volunteers
Fishing for Litter has volunteers worldwide that work on fishing boats. They receive bags to fill up, then return to port for recycling. Any fleet can join up.
So far fleets in England have removed removed hundreds of tonnes of marine litter from our ocean (along with textile and scrap metal, which can be sold for extra income).
