By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press
PORT REPUBLIC, N.J. (AP) — Call it the seafood circle of life: Shells discarded by diners are being collected, cleaned and dumped into waterways around the country and the world, where they form the basis of new oyster colonies.
One of the latest such projects is taking place in Atlantic City, where a casino and two other restaurants are saving the shells left over from their diners. The shells are then collected by the state Department of Environmental Protection, and workers and volunteers with Rutgers and Stockton universities and the Jetty Rock Foundation load them on barges and dump them into the Mullica River.
Diners’ discarded shells help establish new oyster colonies
That waterway is home to one of the last self-sustaining oyster populations on the Atlantic coast, according to Shawn LaTourette, the state’s environmental commissioner. The clam, oyster and other shells form the basis of new or expanded oyster colonies when free-floating baby oysters, known as spat, attach to the shells and begin to grow on them.
“You have the benefit not only of ecological restoration, but it has kept 65 tons of shells out of landfills,” said Scott Stueber, a fisheries biologist with the DEP. That helps the eateries save on waste disposal costs.
The program began in 2019 and currently collects oysters from the Hard Rock casino, the Knife & Fork restaurant and Dock’s Oyster House in Atlantic City. Several other casinos have expressed interest in joining.
“We go through a ton of these shells at our restaurants,” said Grace Chow, Hard Rock’s vice president of food and beverages. “The buffet on a slow day will shuck 500 oysters, and on a busy day, 1,200.”
Oysters are nature’s filters: a single adult oyster can can strain particles and contaminants from 50 gallons of water a day. In addition to improving water quality, oyster colonies also are being planted along coastlines as a shore stabilization and storm mitigation strategy: the bumpy underwater colonies can act as speed bumps for destructive waves headed for the shoreline, dissipating some of their energy.
The goal is not so much to create new places to harvest and sell oysters for consumption as to improve the environment.
In New Jersey, oysters can be harvested for commercial use in Delaware Bay, and the state has a robust aquaculture industry that grows them. The Mullica River project aims to grow oysters for ecological purposes, but it is being studied for possible approval as a commercial harvesting site in the future, the DEP said.
