The global fisheries provide us with almost 20% of our animal protein and yet this vital part of our food system has a major plastic problem.
As with so many economic sectors, fossil plastics changed the fisheries drastically in the middle of the last century. Traditional organic fibres were quickly replaced by polypropylene, high-density polyethylene or nylon. These were cheap, pliable, and strong materials that could easily be mass-produced.
Plastic nets, lines, pots, and traps are now the essential tools of the trade but they have also become the biggest ocean polluters. Estimates stood at 640, 000 tonnes of fishing equipment dumped and discarded in seas each year in 2019. This figure has almost certainly grown.
Plastic pollution on this planetary scale is not just an eyesore. It has disturbing consequences for animal health, causing internal injuries and death to the animals that eat them or get trapped in them. ‘Ghost fishing’ is the term for lost gear at sea that continues to entrap wildlife.
When plastic equipment begins to degrade, the chemical leach harms wildlife and disrupts whole ecosystems even at low concentrations. All these toxins will eventually find themselves inside our own bodies, with research increasingly showing how consumers would be hard pressed to buy seafood not contaminated with microplastics.
Projects and startups around the world are trying to tackle the problem through new biodegradable gear and upcycling businesses that transform discarded equipment into new products.
Towards biodegradable fishing gear in the EU
Discarded fishing gear is one of the most common litter found on European beaches.
The INdiGO project, funded by the European Regional Development Fund to run between September 2019 to June 2023, was the first EU project dedicated to changing that. It sought to transform the sustainability of the fishery equipment sector by getting a comprehensive view on the needs of their end users and the products that could allow them to pursue their livelihoods more sustainably.
The main deliverable of INdiGO was to develop biodegradable gear prototypes that could potentially go to market. To achieve this, its research looked at each step of the manufacturing chain, supported by both private and public partners including small to medium size fishers. This meant analysing fishing gear formulation, learning about filament manufacturing, conducting trials at sea, durability testing, and market analysis to understand how widely any new materials might get adopted.
In addition to technical considerations, the project also sought feedback from fishers to understand the demands of the sector. A survey INdiGO conducted revealed fishermen wanted their equipment to be efficient, resistant, and solid, no matter what kind of material it was made from. Resistance emerged as the key concern: fishermen need nets that will not break under heavy loads. Although durability was also important, fishers indicated they could compromise on this as long as the resistance criteria was met.
INdiGO is now in the process of manufacturing two commercially viable prototypes based on their research findings: a biodegradable fishing nets and a biodegradable aquaculture net for the mussel farming sector. To formulate the material, they are working with two French partners: NaturePlast, which produces bioplastics, and the Regional Institute of Advanced Materials (IRMA), a research institution for developing new high performance plastics.
The EU is doing a lot to address the fishing gear pollution crisis but Asia has long had a head start in this area. South Korea’s National Institute of Fisheries Science developed patented biodegradable fishing nets that decompose into water and carbon dioxide and in 2021 distributed them to 528 fishing boats around the country. It transferred the technology to Korean materials manufacturer ANKOR Bioplastics, which has been exporting the technology to the US since 2022. China and Japan are the only other countries that have rolled out biodegradable gillnets on a large scale.
Norway, a major seafood producer, is now benefiting from Asia’s expertise in building and rolling out biodegradable fishing materials. South Korea’s chemical giant LG CHem and biodegradable plastic firm S-EnPol are right now collaborating with the Norwegian non-profit research project Dsolve. Their aim is to develop biodegradable plastics for fisheries. S-EnPol is to produce and supply biodegradable fillnet and longline filaments while Dsolve will turn these basic materials into usable product prototypes for the Norwegian market.
SeaLive and micro-algae fishing gear
Part of the reason it has taken so long for biodegradable catch gear to be developed and adopted by the European fisheries industry is that the material requirements of this end use are demanding and complex. The materials used must degrade completely and safely in marine environments without any need for collection or processing. Complete degradation must occur in a reasonable space to reduce the chances of wild ‘ghost catches’, yet slow enough that the equipment has a good working lifespan.
Another EU project looking at bio-materials that degrade in marine water is SeaLive, a €10.26 million EU Horizon 2020 programme. On top of microalgae- based biopolymers, it is looking at PLA formulations from agricultural waste and other organic waste streams.
SeaLive delves into detailed technical specifications for biodegradable gear across its entire life-cycle. An important part of SeaLive is working out materials that can best be mass-manufactured and a large portion of their research is devoted to investigating which biomaterials are easiest to mould and extrude. The project will also conduct studies into longer term biodegradation and environmental safety profiling of the materials in both soil and marine water.
In May 2023 SeaLive finally entered the main testing phase for its bio-based fishing nets. Their prototype fishing nets will be used for 12 months off the coast of Cyprus by 10 progressional fishers who will give monthly feedback to the team.
Waste collection schemes for circular fishing gear
INdiGo also looked at ways to upcycle fishing waste into new equipment for the industry. The amount of discarded fishing gear already out there offers ample feedstock for manufacturing circular gear. The benefit of upcycling is that it would also cap the fishery sector’s demand for additional material resources and help keep more petroleum in the ground.
To map out the foundations of a circular model in fishing gear manufacture, INdiGO involves both industry and members of the public in coastal clean-up by collecting discarded equipment for re-use. INdiGO developed a blueprint for identifying and collecting lost equipment called the ‘Fish and Click’ programme, which asks members of the general public and fishermen to share sightings of list gear at sea and shore via a purpose-built app.
Data from this initiative could help map out hotspots for fishing gear waste. This is an essential step in determining available feedstock and could help future businesses starting out in the area to assess the amount of inputs they have to work with.
The project also came up with best practice guidelines for the public and the fishing industry to expedite waste collection, including instructions for how harbours and fishermen can prepare different kinds of gear for recycling.
This part of the project worked closely with Odyssey Innovation. The company designs and manufactures eco-friendly fishing gear but it has also been pioneering in marine waste management through its Net Regeneration Scheme – the UK’s only scheme that offers free net recycling solutions for fishing industry gear. Over the years, it has scaled their collecting sites from a few harbours in Cornwall to other coastal areas around the country.
Since 2019, the EU Single Use Plastics Directive has banned plastics plates, straws, and bags and other items Europeans long took for granted. Less well known is that the law also targeted fishing gear, a pollutant much less widely visible to the average consumer but just as critical to limit the ecological devastation of plastic products.
The legislation is already spurring new products. Senbis, a company that develops sustainable products, has been testing their biodegradable dolly rope on a commercial scale in European fisheries. Dolly ropes are the plastic threads used to protect bottom trawling nets against wear and broken pieces of this are a common sight in northern European beaches.
Upcycling fishing gear for consumer products
Lost and discarded fishing gear need not be transformed back into equipment for the industry. Bureo, a Chilean startup, creates a whole range of consumer products using old equipment.
Bureo was founded in 2013 by three surfers from North America: Kevin Ahearn, Ben Kneppers and David Stover. It offers a case study in a green startup founded on genuine environmental passion. Stover and Kneppers used to travel the world for surfing hotspots but found it difficult to ignore the enormous amount of plastic pollution they found everywhere they went. Eventually, Kneppers was offered a job in Chile, where he became interested in the problem of fishing gear pollution.
Chile is the eighth largest fishing nation in the world, exporting around $6 billion worth in seafood exports each year. The scale of the industry is matched by the amount of fishing gear that end up lost or thrown away.
Bureo transforms fishing nets collected from coastal communities around South America into their proprietary NetPlus pellets. These pellets can be made into NetPlus yarn, to be woven into fabrics, or moulded into various other consumer goods. Their recycled material has already found its way into products made by outdoor wear brand Patagonia, skateboard manufacturer Carver, and Costa Sunglasses. So far, Bureo has collected 4612690 kg of discarded fishing nets.
Another country with an important fisheries industry is Japan. London-based architectural design studio Pan-Projects was commissioned by Japanese sustainable startup REMARE to research ways to make furniture products from upcycled gear from fishing communities around the country.
In December 2022, the project demonstrated a unique homeware aesthetic inspired by the material properties of the gear they found. The designers created a black dinner table top made from fishing gear that capitalised on the irregular textures of ocean plastics. To make this, the designers worked with the natural ‘grain’ of their waste material in the same way that artisanal producers work with the variable properties of wood or stone.
Fishing gear pollution remains a huge problem across the world but there is room for optimism. 73% of 200 English and French fishermen surveyed by the EU INdiGO project stated they were ready to use biodegradable traps, nets, and lines. Already, there has been significant adoption of biodegradable plastic alternatives across Asia.
This receptivity could be rooted in the fact that many fishing communities are only too aware that their existing tools are harming the ecosystems that their livelihoods depend upon. The industry has already begun to play a part in the global fight to preserve marine biodiversity and could become ready partners in future for the circular and biomaterials industries.