Responsibility Measures

Cost-risk assessments related to easy-to-lose materials containing plastic should be part of the normal, internal assessments of companies, similar to the health-risk assessments or others Develop and implement contingency plans for extreme weather conditions, e.g. removal of vulnerable equipment. Farm locations should be sheltered from storms in a natural way or by artificial dykes, embankments, etc. In seaweed farming, steel poles can be used that stand several metres deep in the seabed Farmers should use certified materials that are appropriately strong and well-functioning. Use alternative natural materials instead of plastic wherever possible Internal performance indicators should be established to assess a) which type of uses and b) how long you need a specific item/material. This will give farmers the direct hint what material has to be ordered and could be re-defined and replaced easily after the material does no meet the expectations. Alternative materials for mussel socks have been used in several places Mussel larvae collector lines are held afloat by buoys and other floats that are made of plastic. These floats often come loose and then wash up on the beaches. In the Netherlands, they now replace them with long tubes of rubber plastic that stay afloat. In terms of material, this solution does not solve the problem but there is no longer any loss of the floats. Small twines from pure cotton of 1.1mm thickness are used for the delivery of small seedlings of seaweed. They can be lost when unpacking and attaching to bigger ropes. That is why farmers choose cotton as the loss of small twines is common. Demarcation materials of mussel plots: mussel farmers in the Netherlands often use non-biodegradable materials for this purpose, which may disappear with storms. The Dutch sector is looking at the possibilities of working with biodegradable materials to attach to the poles. In the Shetlands, mussel farmers use continuous lines or loops instead of mussel pegs (plastic stoppers) Following the idea of EPR, also the users (mainly the farmers and their staff) should be liable for losing especially the little items as this is foreseeable. The measures and related incentives have to be extended to group-specific obligations and measures (on a voluntary basis, with a code of conduct, with new legislation etc.). Companies can implement improved awareness with own guidelines in relation to national legislation. All staff members of an aquaculture farm should learn the appropriate procedures in place to carefully clean up, making sure nothing is lost. Awareness and good attitude play a big role here, if workers are aware of the problem, they would be much more careful and conscious in not littering. The aquaculture farmer should set up an inventory, if not done already, of all installed and acquired equipment during the life cycle of a farm. This way, the number of items that are replaced or got lost can be tracked more easily. Currently, monitoring takes place after a storm. A monitoring-scheme (e.g. every 40 days) should be established in order to get standardized results. For seaweed industries, the LCA is estimated to be around 5-10 years. Considering this frame, the monitoring schedule should be created and adapted, and the necessity to remove and renew all the old structures should be planned before they are too old and, therefore, more fragile in case of storm/accident. Tagging lost items can help to track them. This is usually done with buoys and with essential structures (e.g. long floating pipes). This approach should be open for crossborder collaboration to enable an easy exchange of gear waste between countries, also related to joint recycling plants to increase the amount of waste. The farmers should make an inventory of all aquaculture equipment that has been installed to easily track what gear might be lost. Encourage the reuse of aquaculture materials Encourage farmers to set short, medium objectives to help them reach “Zero waste” goal. Farmer responsibility: add serial number on materials (e.g. on mussel cones). Implement structural changes to allow reuse of aquaculture materials