From restaurants to reefs: recycling discarded oyster shells
Janet Mcconnaughey, Associated Press
Updated 11:18 am, Tuesday, February 21, 2017
ON LAKE ATHANASIO, La. (AP) — If you slurp oysters from the half-shell in New Orleans, you may be doing more than satisfying a culinary craving: You could be helping to construct reefs that environmental groups hope will save a bit of Louisiana's coastline.
Since 2014, restaurants have contributed nearly 2,600 tons of shells to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and The Nature Conservancy, which have already used a quarter of them to construct a half-mile-long reef about 40 miles outside of New Orleans.
Tiny oyster larvae like nothing better than oyster shells to cement themselves to as their permanent home. Up to 10 of the larvae, known as spat, can stick to a single shell. Left undisturbed, the reef grows up and out, providing homes for other types of marine life and slowing the waves that chew continually at Louisiana's coast. The oysters also filter up to 25 gallons of water a day, improving water quality.
For thousands of years, people have been hauling oysters out of the sea, chowing down on the ounce or so of meat inside, and then tossing the shells. Prehistoric Indians left oyster and clamshell heaps up to 600 feet long and 50 to 100 feet high on every U.S. coast. These days, the shells either end up in landfills or are ground up into road material or chicken feed.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/From-restaurants-to-reefs-recycling-discarded-10947961.php
(Great photos at link.)