A lobster processing plant reduces its impact on the environment


It seems like every shoreline in Nova Scotia tends to have these elastic bands of lobsters, »

A quote from Angela Riley, founder of environmental organization Scotian Shores

Two months ago she discovered a large concentration of these tapes to hold lobster princes on the beach near the discharge pipes of the Atlantic ChiCan Seafood Ltd lobster processing plant on Cape Sable Island .

A young woman near a body of water.

Angela Riley now has hundreds of volunteers on her Scotian Shores team who clean up the province’s beaches daily.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Robert Guertin

She called the company, which was responsive to her concerns.

Since then, a team has put in place ways to control the waste discharged by the factory.

The team installed screens on the plant’s drains, and attached homemade pipe sleeves to the nine discharge pipes that flow into the ocean.

$20 per sock and 20 minutes to make

Scott Wearethe plant’s maintenance manager, sewed and installed the slippers from a bait net and attached them to the pipes with metal clamps.

A man holds a piece of netting attached to the end of a pipe.

Scott Weare holds up a prototype pipe sock he made.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Robert Short

In his opinion, commercial pipe socks can be expensive, but his design costs $20 per sock and takes 20 minutes to make.

The company hopes to become a leader in the industry and inspire others to use the same methods.

I hope we can help other people, pass on our knowledge of what we have invented to others.

Since installing two weeks ago, the netting socks have picked up a significant amount of trash that would have escaped the grates inside the plant.

Angela Riley doesn’t blame all the plants, but she has seen multiple instances of strips and plastic coming from discharge pipes on the South Shore and in the Bay of Fundy, where lobster processing is common.

I think sometimes what happens is a factory thinks it’s very little wastesaid Angel Riley.

But then when you go to the Bay of Fundy and see the amount there, it’s really a combined effort of pollution.

Government response

In an emailed statement, Tracy Barronspokesperson for the department, says the lobster strips are considered garbage from a provincial perspective.

We recently received a complaint about lobster stripshe wrote. The department provided the facility with educational materials and contacted the federal agency responsible for regulating these facilities, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it has inspected all lobster plants in Nova Scotia for the past five years,but inspection of waste release is not within its remit .

Four pipes emptying on the shore.

Discharge pipes without netting socks can leak rubber bands from lobster claws.

Photo: Courtesy of Scotia Shores

Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture spokesperson, Bruce Nunn, writes thata specific provision exists in provincial fish inspection regulations that regulate processing facilities.

These regulations require that the area and beach surrounding and under the control of an establishment be kept clean.

But, it does not specify whether the ministry will require socks on the discharge pipes.

Factory problems

Mary Bladesquality control supervisor at Atlantic ChiCan Seafood explains that the rings aren’t supposed to come off the lobsters in the processing plant, but they often do.

Workers in a factory shell cooked lobsters

The factory process causes some rubber bands to come off the clamps and end up at the bottom of the drains.

Photo: CBC

We store lobsters in the tank with bands on it and sometimes when they come out they don’t have bands,she says.

The strips then end up on the bottom of the tanks, which are periodically cleaned and discharged into the ocean, or on the factory floor, which is washed down the drains at the end of the day.

Repercussions of this pollution

Tony Walkera professor at the School of Resources and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie is concerned about this plastic expelled by processing plants.

Anything man-made that ends up in the environment is of concernhe said.

He adds that while some manufacturers say their rubber bands are biodegradable, they shouldn’t end up in nature because they can take up to 15 years to decompose.

Tony Walker standing in front of a dock.

Tony Walker says rubber that spills into the ocean could pose a significant ecological risk to marine organisms.

Photo: Radio-Canada / Robert Guertin

The rubber band itself could be ingested by marine wildlife or seabirds, preventing food ingestion, so the organisms could still dieexplains Tony Walker.

Or if the strips continue to degrade, they may form small particles like microplastics or microrubber particles.

Scott Weare says there are over 15 processing plants on Cape Sable Island alone, and he intends to supply the socks to all interested plants.

My wife, I and my family like to walk on the beach. And, you know, we don’t want to see rubber bands and tags and everything. We want to be proud of our beacheshe said I’ll gladly do the socks if the guys want to put them on.

With information from Nicolas Segin of CBC



Reference-ici.radio-canada.ca

Leave a Comment