Responsibility Measures
Farmer/user responsibility
Avoid, as far as possible, bringing items into open sea facilities that can potentially turn into garbage, such as
plastic feed bags, which can be substituted by heavier containers that cannot fly away so easily.
Facilitate the collection of small gear items when they are being removed by bringing containers to the facilities.
Purchase very resistant material to harsh conditions.
Create surveillance plans which include checking the state of the aquaculture facilities regularly, with the objective
to prevent potential gear losses and damages.
Create pre-scheduled surveillance plans to obtain information on the life cycle, durability and resistance, etc of the
gear and the items used. These plans can be the basis of the farmers’ customized traceability systems.
Good practices regarding the waste prevention should be mandatory (no alternative accepted) and they should become
another part of the daily work flow.
Enlarge the life-cycle of the nets by following a regular maintenance scheme including washing, disinfection, repairing
and applying anti-fouling treatments, among others.
Promote the local repair and reuse of nets
Apply penalties to the companies that do not put in place prevention measures
Apply penalties to the companies that do not put in place prevention 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.
In parallel to producers, also liability can put on the users of aquaculture products when loosing especially little
items.
Mark gear to track it back to the owner. Authorities can better enforce penalties for intentionally dumping aquaculture
gear and nets into the sea. It also creates an opportunity to return gear that was accidentally lost to the owner for
reuse and increases the visibility of gear.
Coloured gear like ropes becomes mandatory to help trace the region, the species cultured (or fished) and the local
aquaculture site.
Tracking can foster the retrieval of high-valued equipment like floating buoys or PE nets using a GPS with satellite
(alarm).
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.
Use of transponders in coastal aquaculture farms or by small-scale farms. In many aqucaculture facilities their wider
adoption would provide an additional method of location to reduce gear loss through misplacement at minimal additional
cost.
Mark and connect easily lost items to the owner: a) Add a telephone number of the responible municipality b) Mark buoys
with the telephone number of the owner c) Add a phone number to call at all beaches that people can bring back the items
to farmers or a municipal collection site.