Responsibility Measures

Aquaculture should not be singled out as industry, instead cooperation in handling waste with other industries/neighbour states is needed. This would make the logistics for handling wastes more attractive for specialized companies. Set up collaborations between farmers, port authorities and gear producers to locate and establish collection points for disposal of aquaculture gear in the port reception facilities. Farmers could be responsible for bringing the gear to the port facilities (encouraged by implementing a deposit-to-be-returned system, for example) and, on the other hand, gear producers could economically compensate the port authorities for using their installations. Establish a clear management and description of roles and responsibilities in each part of the process (collection, treatment, transport and recycling) before the creation of the EPR system. Deposit schemes, option 1: grant a discount on following purchases: the farmer brings back the used items to the seller/manufacturer and gets a discount on the price of the following purchase depending on the weight/volume/quantity returned. Deposit schemes, option 2: return a deposit: to purchase an order, the farmer pays not only for the bought items but he also leaves a deposit, which will be returned by the seller/manufacturer once the farmer returns the used items. Raise the awareness related to the non-organic marine litter from the aquaculture sector as this will increase the willingness of farmers and/or consumers to pay more to cover the extra cost related to the use of recycled nets (if no other option could avoid the price increase), and thus the reduced impact on the marine environment. An increased awareness of all aquaculture stakeholders, especially the farmers, should imply a larger involvement of the sector in voluntary initiatives focused on reducing the impact of their economical activities (e.g. voluntary initiatives related to Fishing for litter). 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).