Recycling Oyster Shells

Oysters are a prized delicacy all across the globe. The demand for it makes oyster farming and wild oyster harvesting a lucrative industry that many traders/businessmen indulge in. Now when the harvest of wild oysters is not done well (perhaps in the sense of non-selective harvest or non marine ecology preserving harvest methods employed) and the oyster farms employs the use of chemicals in raising the shellfish, it gives rise to the concerns over the sustainability of it all.

But whilst those concerns are obvious and quite well known, the link between oysters and eco-sustainability doesn’t end there. Did you know that you can and should recycle oyster shells? Yes, you read that line correctly, because I did write RECYCLE OYSTER SHELLS.  

So what’s this recycling oyster shells business about and what exactly can they be recycled into?
Well strictly in the context of this article, oyster shells recycling refers to a program where ‘used’/’consumed’ shells of oysters are collected from businesses as well as individuals and recycled by being placed back into the waters to help bring back up the declining wild oysters population.

Now before you think I’m talking crazy by somehow implying that dropping the shells of consumed oysters back into the oceans floors will make new ones grow, bear with me and let me explain because that’s pretty much exactly what I meant.

The process is known as cultch planting where the recycled shells are loaded onto barges and sprayed off with a high-pressure water hose to create reefs. You see, shells make great homes for oysters because baby oysters begin their life as free-floating organisms that settles to the oceans beds and attaching themselves to hard surfaces.

A single oyster can produce millions of eggs annually and these eggs are drifters, carried by currents and tides amongst the brackish waters. The mound of oyster shells placed on a reef will attract the drifting baby oysters which will grow into a good harvesting size within 2 to 3 years.
But breeding new baby oysters isn’t the sole purpose of recycling the shells because they too will house/colonized a multitude of other marine organisms forming what is known as an oyster reef.

Providing a habitat for other beneficial organisms, such as algae, worms, barnacles, crabs, small minnows and small fish -all vital food sources to a diversity of larger fish, the oyster reef will easily grow into a flourishing little underwater metropolis of its own.   
Furthermore by recycling shells and encouraging the oyster population, we are actually making for cleaner water as oysters are by nature natural water filters. They clean water by simply feeding on plankton and waterborne detritus and you’ll be amazed to know that one little oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day!

If you’re interest to know more about recycling shells like the locations of public oyster shell recycling locations or restaurants that participate in recycling the shells, do visit the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries where they say ‘if you shuck it, don’t chuck it’