Legislation measures

With the growth of the industry it would be advisable to have the aquaculture specific non-biological waste disposal and material recycling systems in place (i.e. standards, solutions and procedures) to collect larger amounts of waste of the same material.

Harmonisation Harmonisation

Relevant type of aquaculture:

Fish Shellfish Seaweed

Relevant sea basin:

Baltic

Relevant stage:

Removal and recycling

Related Barriers:

  • Recycling companies are located too far from the farm to collect, sort and recycle worn out gear and other waste, which is too costly to integrate into the lifecycle of a farm. This barrier leads to dumping the waste in the garbage without sorting it.

  • Procedures for dismantling are not economically efficient today and should be further optimized. Manual dismantling processes only exist in some Baltic Sea countries and transport across countries is expensive.

  • Weak transport opportunities of gear between ports and recycling facilities.

  • There is a lack of waste management infrastructure with, e.g. insufficient opportunities to collect, sort and reuse waste in ports or other defined collection sites.

  • There is a lack of cooperation between different sectors like aquaculture, fisheries and agriculture to collect a needed amount of gear to assure recycling. Recycling will only be taken up on a larger scale if it is economically beneficial.

Related Good Practice:

R&R GP1.3

Cooperation in collecting waste between several seafood companies

SeaBOS (Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship), one of the top 10 world’s largest seafood companies (founded 2 years ago) has aligned its policies for ocean stewardship and seafood standards relating to fishing and aquaculture. Their aim is to get retailers – also from the Baltic Sea Region - to adopt those policies, which consequently would force the entire supply chain to introduce new standards and to have a visible impact on the seafood industry as a whole within the next year (2020). One of their 6 task forces works on the topic of reducing ocean plastics – to ensure that SeaBOS members map the sources, presence and type of plastics in their seafood production, as well as identify ways to improve ocean health by removing plastics from the ocean environment. The task force will contribute to the development of a strategy, based on scientific knowledge, existing best practices and the frontiers of innovation. A stronger involvement of aquaculture farmers is planned.