Courtesy Oyster Recovery Partnership

To help restore the Chesapeake Bay, the Oyster Recovery Partnership launched a new recycling program this week. The Oyster Recovery Partnership Shell Recycling Alliance will aim to collect used oyster shells with the goal of growing new oysters on them in hatcheries.

Stephan Abel, executive director of ORP, told the Associated Press that the idea for this recycling program came from oyster shuckers themselves. Restaurants, hotels, catering venues and any other seafood distributor can request bins and receive 5-gallon buckets in which to put their used shells. According to the program’s Web site, the Alliance will then arrange to have the shells picked up throughout the Washington/Baltimore/Annapolis region. Twenty groups have agreed to take part in the ORP thus far.

Officially, the program kicked off in Baltimore this week after a pilot recycling program was deemed successful. According to Southern Maryland Online, over the last 18 months the pilot program collected more than 1.5 million shells locally. ORP hopes to collect at least 200,000 bushels of oysters each year to help replenish the dwindling oyster population in the Bay.