Sea-based sources of marine represent the 35% of items found floating (55% in terms of weight) in the coastal waters of the Bay of Biscay.

In general terms, up to 1 million tonnes of fishing gear are discarded or lost in the ocean every year. Marine litter can cause serious environmental and economic impacts, and these industries need innovative solutions to prevent and reduce their contribution of marine litter.

Could you imagine a future fishing and aquaculture industry that rather than acting as polluters, they would become part of the solution to the marine litter challenge?

In BLUENET we have done it. BLUENET has developed long line ropes for mussel aquaculture out of discarded end-of-life fishing and aquaculture nets and ropes and it has all been done locally.

Do you want to know more? Play the video!

BLUENET is an EASME-EMFF funded project focused on implementing solutions to reduce the amount of marine litter contribution from the fishing and aquaculture sector in the South-East Bay of Biscay.