County Collects Tons of Oyster Shells

Convenience Center Program Began in 2014

Between June 2014 and December 2016, St. Mary’s County’s six convenience centers have collected 23.91 tons (or 683 bushels) of used oyster shells which are used as substrate on which to plant new oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. The effort is part of the Oyster Recovery Partnership’s (ORP’s) Shell Recycling Alliance (SRA) program.

Natural oyster shell is vital to a healthy oyster population because it is the preferred material for oyster larvae to attach and grow. Every half shell can host up to 10 spat, or baby oysters. Once collected, the oyster shell is aged outside for a year, washed and set with spat by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory Oyster Hatchery in Cambridge, Maryland.

Since the Shell Recycling Alliance’s 2010 launch, ORP has recycled 133,000 bushels, which equates to 4,660 tons of shell kept out of area landfills and enough substrate to support the planting of 500 million oysters in local waters. Over the past two decades, the Oyster Recovery Partnership has planted approximately seven billion oysters on 2,400 underwater acres. Oysters play a vital role in improving Chesapeake Bay health by filtering excess nutrients from the water and their reefs create habitat for a multitude of marine life.

The Shell Recycling Alliance program began in 2010 with 21 restaurants in Baltimore and Annapolis. Today, it includes more than 320 seafood business members, local governments, and individuals throughout the Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware region.

“Hopefully this program will help make people aware that the shell they usually throw away has an important greater purpose,” said George Erichsen, former director of the Department of Public Works & Transportation. Current DPWT Director John Deatrick recently noted, “It’s very, very worthwhile to do with minimum inconvenience. … You are literately reseeding the oysters when you recycle.”

For more information and a video of the oyster recovery program, click here.

For more about Lexington Park, visit the St. Mary’s County Community Development Corporation’s Leader member page.

St. Mary’s County Community Development Corporation

46940 South Shangri-La Drive, Suite 7

Lexington Park, MD 20653

301-863-7700