From nets to kilowatts

The debris found along the shores of Hawaii are the result of currents in the north Pacific Ocean, says Ms. Forbes.

Although disposing of fishing equipment at sea is illegal, there are several reasons why it can end up in the ocean:

• Fishing crews may lose nets or rope because of storms or have nets washed off boat decks while nets are being repaired at sea.

• Gear stored on shore may be accidentally swept back into the ocean.

It’s expensive to get rid of old gear, says Holly Bamford, director of the NOAA Marine Debris Program. Rather than pay a tipping fee, some fishermen end up dumping gear at sea.

Costs aside, trying to find a landfill that will even take fishing gear is another roadblock for fishermen trying to dispose of damaged or unwanted equipment legally, says Mark Patterson, harbor master of Scituate, Mass.

While some landfills will process fishing gear, others won’t accept it because of its sheer volume and weight – some nets can weigh up to four tons and measure the length of six football fields, notes Ms. Bamford.

Beyond its size, fishing gear can also be difficult to process. Although many fishermen are able to recycle lobster traps and crab pots, “nets and fishing gear damaged some of the equipment they were using [at the landfill],” says Mr. Patterson. “That was a bigger part of the problem than the costs.”

Because there wasn’t a way to dispose of it, nets and gear would often end up in fishermen’s backyards, notes Dave Haley.

He and a fellow Scituate fisherman, Frank Mirarchi, have kept a record of the marine debris they’ve encountered during commercial fishing trips in the Atlantic during the past three years.

After they continued to get stuck in nets or found old gear almost daily, they started patrolling areas in Massachusetts Bay to help raise awareness of the issue in hopes of finding a solution.

Now, Scituate’s port has a Fishing for Energy bin to collect any abandoned nets and equipment that fishermen may find at sea. Since 2006, the duo have recovered an estimated five tons of discarded fishing gear as well as other trash.

“There’s just so much junk,” says Mr. Haley, who now serves as Scituate’s marine debris coordinator for Fishing for Energy. “We’ve called it a chronic problem. It seems like it’s always there.”

This “chronic problem,” often unseen from the ocean’s surface, poses a big threat to marine life.

“When nets [and] traps roll around after storms, they basically scar up the sea floor, impacting critical habitat for various marine species,” says Bamford.

Another effect of abandoned gear is “ghost fishing.” This is when discarded gill nets or traps continue to capture marine species.

“When these [nets] get lost, they continue do what they are made to do ... and if nobody is tending to these traps, they continue to fish and pull resources from the environment,” says Bamford.

Over the past year, the Fishing for Energy program has collected 305,626 tons pounds of gear from seven permanent installations in ports in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, as well as from five temporary dumpsters in Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island ports.

In the future, the program might expand to Maine, Florida, Oregon, and additional locations in New York, says Thomas Barry, assistant director of marine programs for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Removing the gear, Bamford says, is the first step in limiting the amount of marine debris that ends up in the ocean.

The next step: prevention. By providing bins for collection and a program that converts nets into energy, “there is a place where fishermen can go to dispose of gear for free,” she says. “It’s a big incentive – an incentive to prevent marine debris from entering the ocean.”

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