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EU Plans to Pay Fishermen to Catch Plastic

Posted by samzenpus on from the fresh-bottles-from-today's-catch dept.

In an attempt to reduce pressure on disappearing fish stocks, the EU's fisheries chief has proposed paying fisherman to catch floating plastic instead of fish. In a trial run, select Mediterranean fishermen will be given nets for scooping up the trash and will be paid for the amount of plastic that gets recycled. From the article: "...in future the scheme could turn into a self-sustaining profitable enterprise, as fleets cash in on the increasing value of recycled plastics. Cleaning up the rubbish will also improve the prospects for fish, seabirds and other marine species, which frequently choke or suffer internal damage from ingesting small pieces of non-biodegradable packaging." I look forward to the day that landfill mining becomes profitable.

10 comments

  1. Landfill mining is already profitable. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    If what you're extracting is valuable enough (e.g., cardboard, cloth), and your labour force is cheap enough.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  2. landfill mining by samjam · · Score: 1

    Landfill mining won't be profitable if we stop filling.

    --
    blog.sam.liddicott.com
  3. Fraud? by durnurd · · Score: 1

    And if they decide to just go to a landfill, "catch" a bunch of plastic, then turn it in for profit?

    --
    --Edward Dassmesser
    1. Re:Fraud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mission accomplished...part of the point is recycling to help the environment. The more plastic that gets removed from oceans OR landfills and recycled the better. Besides that, time spent on land mining landfills would be a waste...that's time they could be spending at sea looking for plastic or, probably more profitably, fish. It's better for them to continue to spend their time in the ocean. If they can't find their primary targets (fish), at least they now have the alternative of a secondary if lower source of income (plastic). They probably won't be paying them enough for the plastic to make it worth it to abandon fishing in exchange for raiding landfills.

    2. Re:Fraud? by nwf · · Score: 1

      That's what I was thinking. This actually places incentives to dump trash into the ocean, rewarding the behavior that caused the problem they are trying to clean up. I can see that when the economy turns bad, people will be encouraging everyone to dump more plastic to "create" jobs.

      --
      I don't know, but it works for me.
    3. Re:Fraud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When the economy turns bad the first thing they will axe is funding an environmental program like this.

      More people out getting junk == more witnesses of littering.
      Make ocean littering now punishable by
      Profit

    4. Re:Fraud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I meant to say
      Make ocean littering now punishable by #some new huge fine#
      then

      Profit

    5. Re:Fraud? by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

      Ocean littering is punishable by huge old fines, and they enforce the hell out of it- zero tolerance and everything. I think they're going after all the crap that washes/blows out from idiots on land.

      --
      They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  4. Rider by hoboroadie · · Score: 1

    This looks like a small part of a much more important piece of legislation, now that I actually RTFA.

    --
    They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
  5. the scheme could turn self-sustaining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i) fisherman's pal dumps plastic in sea
    ii) fisherman catches plastic from sea
    iii) fisherman hands in plastic to pal in 'recylcing'
    iv) profit