Cooperating with fishers to ensure their nets are recycled and don’t end up in a landfill or the marine environment is one of our highest priorities. For their collection in Greece and Italy, we work together with Enaleia. Their groundbreaking work as well as vast and continuously expanding network of fishers is being noticed by international Media and the United Nations.
Healthy Seas has been on their side from their very beginning, becoming Enaleia’s first upcycling partner in 2017. Thanks to our joint efforts, fishers collecting waste from the seas is no longer such a novel concept.
During the first three quarters of 2022, Enaleia has collected nets from 22 harbours that we are ensuring will be recycled into new, sustainable products.
Recently, over 9 tonnes of ghost nets and end of life fishing nets were transported to Aquafil from Greece, to be renegerated together with other nylon waste into ECONYL® yarn. Another shipment is on its way to Bracenet who are going to use green, yellow, red and blue nets in their next collection. Stay tuned!
In the summer, we caught up with Enaleia’s co-founder and UN Young Champion of the Earth, Lefteris Arapakis, at the United Nations Oceans Conference in Lisbon. Although he is a regular at international fora for environmental protection he told us that he does not find enough representatives from fishing communities. “They are not invited to engage with other stakeholders and don’t have a seat at the table. It’s like we are all deciding something that is going to influence their lives without them participating in the decision making. That’s kind of crazy and not really democratic”, he told us.
