By Katharine Sucher, Science Writing Intern
It happened in an instant. On a hot summer day in East Queens Lake near Williamsburg, VA, a woman walking along the marina became caught in a large tangle of fishing line. She struggled to free her legs from the fibrous mass, but with two arms in casts from a recent accident, it was no use. In the beating heat of July, she was stuck.
Wes Batten, Officer for Marine Safety for US Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 67, says monofilament fishing line is often tossed into trashcans, “or worse, rolled up and thrown in the weeds of boat ramps.” A passerby eventually freed the woman at East Queens Lake, but not all entanglements have such happy endings. Old monofilament fishing line can strangle or choke wildlife, especially since it is designed to be hard to see in water. Caught on a propeller or other equipment, it can also lead to costly boat repairs.
With support from Virginia Sea Grant, Flotilla 67 has installed recycling bins for monofilament line to cut down on these occurrences and reduce waste. Ten recycling bins were recently put in place at launch ramps, marinas, and sporting goods stores along the James, Chickahominy, and York Rivers. Batten receives the most positive feedback from stores, he says.
“Their response is, ‘Gee, this is a great idea because we would have just thrown this away.’ And then it would just sit in landfills,” Batten says.
Instead, volunteers empty the recycling bins and send collected fishing line to Berkley, a fishing tackle company. Berkley then incorporates the line into structures called Fish-Habs. According to the Berkley website, these underwater four-foot cubes “attract fish and encourage plant growth almost immediately, providing the natural cover essential to the growth of a healthy fish population.” The site reports the company has collected more than nine million miles of recycled monofilament fishing line from recycling efforts nationwide.
Publications Officer Kim Holland says Flotilla 67 can’t boast numbers on that scale just yet, especially since the bins were only installed about two months ago. Instead, she is “excited to see the metrics in five to ten years when we can measure an actual decrease in monofilament line along busy marinas.”
Batten says there’s another value to the program, too. The visibility of the recycling bin project, he points out, draws attention to Flotilla 67’s increased emphasis on environmental protection.
“A part of the effort is to educate by virtue of the fact that the containers are there,” Batten says. “The bins communicate that conservation of resources is important.”
