Trawl to Trash: Building Community Capacity for the Long-Term Prevention of Marine Debris
About the Project
The S.C. Sea Grant Consortium, in partnership with Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, is administering the Trawl to Trash program, designed to raise awareness of marine debris and empower communities to become involved in initiatives to prevent and clean up trash in our coastal lands and waterways.
The program works by recruiting and hiring local commercial shrimpers to construct stow bags by upcycling old and discarded shrimp trawl nets, which they construct during their off-season. Stow bags are then disseminated through educational stewardship and outreach activities to eco-tour operators, recreational fishermen, and the public to encourage re-use of the bags to reduce trash in our local environment.
Marine Debris
If current practices continue, the amount of plastic waste discharged to the ocean could reach up to 53 million metric tons per year by 2030, equivalent to approximately half the total weight of fish caught from the ocean annually.[1]
Marine debris (deliberately or accidentally released plastics, metal, rubber, paper, and textiles into oceans) is now found in almost every marine habitat, from the ocean surface to deep-sea sediments, and debris coming from both terrestrial and oceanic sources often accumulates in coastal environments.[2] The presence of marine debris in the ocean and coastal environments endangers marine life, degrades coastal and ocean habitats, harms fisheries, and threatens human health and safety.
Commercial Shrimpers
South Carolina commercial fisheries are characterized by small-scale operations harvesting primarily shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, clams, and offshore finfish. These operations, located in coastal fishing villages are responsible for supplying fresh, domestically sourced protein to local seafood markets, and they contribute largely to sustaining coastal economies and working waterfronts.
The shrimp industry is the largest fishery in South Carolina and supplies fresh, local shrimp from May through January. Shrimpers use large trawl nets to harvest this resource and they, like all commercial fishermen, depend on viable coastal ecosystems and healthy fish populations for their livelihoods. Eventually, trawl nets become unusable and fishermen retire the nets. The trawl to trash program capitalizes on this by compensating fishermen to upcycle their old nets into trash stow bags for use in marine debris collection efforts.
Today, fishing industries and working waterfronts are vulnerable to a declining workforce, graying of the fleet, coastal residential development, climate change, and other anthropogenic stressors like ecosystem and human health-threatening marine debris. Commercial fishermen desire your support in sustaining fisheries through your purchase of local quality seafood and your participation in coastal health initiatives.
Project Funding
Funding was recently provided through the NOAA Marine Debris program to expand and scale the Trawl to Trash program. With this expansion, the Consortium and partners will be:
- Forming a regional coalition aimed at preventing littering of coastal lands and waterways
- Creating supplementary income sources for shrimpers by offering opportunities to construct stow bags in years 2023-2025
- Raising awareness of marine debris through outreach activities and programming
- Partnering with and establishing a fully funded outreach program for the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor
References
1 Stephanie B. Borrelle et al., Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution. Science 369,1515-1518 (2020). DOI:10.1126/science.aba3656
2 S.C. Gall, R.C. Thompson, The impact of debris on marine life. Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 92, Issues 1–2, 2015, Pages 170-179, ISSN 0025-326X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2014.12.041. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X14008571)