Responsibility Measures

Shared responsibility Shared responsibility

The responsibility of the individual user should be increased instead of EPR schemes possibly overtaken by a whole sector and denying individual liability More preventive measures are needed to reduce litter from the aquaculture sector. Both the producers and designers should be more active at the start of the material chain. With regard to EPR, the gear producer should give a certain guarantee to the farmer after analysing correct installation. After this period, it is up to the farmer to maintain the installation Tracking system should be performed at a European level so that lost and found items can be exchanged between countries. Farmers can pay a fund to a European body that collects the waste and distributes it to the owners. The producer should report their lost items to the European body Raising awareness will have effect on a long term, it is important to make people active and do not make them upset. Waste collection by responsible authorities is advisable because a fee can be imposed on the sector that is responsible for the items collected. An exhaustive inventory of what materials each sector is using (incl. fisheries and aquaculture separately) is needed to know how to assign the correct proportion of litter to every sector. In this way, each sector could be made responsible for their litter: mussel sector; oyster sector, fish sector, etc. Extended Producer Responsibility - Trace the responsibility of recycling to the producers and do not leave it at the sole responsibility of the farmer: a joint responsibility (shared responsibility). Introduce annual maintenance contracts (AMC) between the aquaculture farmers, equipment manufacturers and other service providers to carry out regular checkups of the entire aquaculture infrastructure, to maintain, repair and collect the damaged gear and other equipment, and to recover it after a storm (even if located in another country bordering the same sea-basin).