December 22, 2016 — GULF SHORES, Ala. — With an anticipated 130,000 pounds of shells to be collected by the end of a productive pilot period, Alabama’s oyster shell recycling program is set to expand into Gulf Shores and Orange Beach restaurants starting in January.
The successful program — the first multi-partner initiative of its kind in the state — is expected to save nearly 600,000 oyster shells from landfill in just nine weeks and return them to Alabama’s reefs as habitat for future oysters.
“This is an excellent program because it creates a positive cycle,” said Mark Berte, Executive Director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, which designed the program and secured two years of funding from National Fisheries and Wildlife Federation officials.
“The more shells we collect from restaurants, the more opportunity we give new oysters to grow when we put them in the water, which means more oysters for restaurants to sell…and more to recycle,” Berte said.
The program involves weekly pickups from six seafood restaurants in Mobile along the Causeway who otherwise would toss their oyster shells as garbage or discard them somewhere out of the way on property.
Felix’s Fish Camp Grill, for example, used to line the perimeter of their parking lot with oyster shells; in fact, the restaurant became renowned for it on Travelocity and other tourism websites. A shell recycling event on November 31 filled more than 317 bins, weighing nearly 70,000 pounds, from Felix’s property — an estimated 341,092 shells.
“We had lined those along our parking lot so people weren’t driving off into the grass,” said Julius Harbison, General Manager at Felix’s Fish Camp, in Spanish Fort. “They had been there a year or two so they were some already seasoned shells.”
Harbison’s father was an oysterman so he understood the value of the program when ACF first approached the restaurant.
“Our owner asked me and my chef what we thought, and we said it was really a no brainer,” Harbison said. “It doesn’t take a lot of effort as a business, and for me personally, it’s amazing to be able to participate in something like this.”