Yesterday's dinner shells become tomorrow's oyster reef: New Jersey passes its goal

Oyster reefs begin as empty shells — so New Jersey collects them from dinner plates. The state's shell recycling programme, run by the Department of Environmental Protection with 20 restaurants across Atlantic, Cape May and Ocean counties, has planted 26,087 bushels of recycled oyster and clam shells across eight acres of the Mullica River estuary — beating its yearly target of 25,000 bushels and more than doubling its previous planting record. The shells are cleaned and cured in the sun for at least six months, then returned to the river, where baby oysters settle on them and rebuild reef. Backed by more than $1.2 million in federal NOAA funding, the partners plan 10 more acres. The Mullica reef is one of the last self-sustaining wild oyster populations on New Jersey's Atlantic coast.

SDG 14 · Life below water — Mechanism: institutional program