New bins to stop Easter holiday crabbing litter
School holidays see left behind crab lines and nets fall into the ocean.
Weymouth has launched new Crab line recycling bins to tackle large amounts of litter left behind from crabbing during the school holidays.
Crabbing has been a popular activity for generations on Weymouth's historic harbourside, but in recent years it has led to discarded lines and nets littering the area and the relatively cheap to buy lines being treated as single use plastics and left on the quay or thrown in waste bins.
Weymouth & Portland Marine Litter Project has worked with the Harbour authority and Dorset council to provide locations for recycling stations along the harbourside, where crabbing equipment can be deposited after use.
The stations, made from hand-crafted recycled wood, by the Portland Man Shed, a not for profit workshop on Portland will be regularly emptied by volunteers who will then separate the line, plastic winders and net for recycling by a specialist company in the UK.
Jane Fuhrmann, co-founder of the Marine Litter Project, said: “We are so happy to receive the support of local councils and the harbour in making this scheme a reality. Discarded crab lines and nets pose very real threats to marine wildlife, particularly in terms of entanglement. The recycling bins are just one part of the scheme, we will also be promoting an ethical crabbing code and working with local businesses and Weymouth BID to increase the sales of non plastic crabbing lines”
Cllr Colin Huckle, Mayor of Weymouth, said: “Weymouth Town Council awarded Weymouth & Portland Marine Litter Project £2,000 towards this fantastic initiative which aims to reduce the amount of plastic pollution produced by this popular seaside activity. I would encourage people to use the crab line facilities to help protect marine wildlife, and support us in our efforts to make the town a cleaner and greener place to live, work, and visit.”
The bins will be in place each year from Easter until September to deliver a circular economy solution, inline with Weymouth Town Councils single use plastics policy.