Fishermen have taken oysters out of the Long Island Sound off Connecticut for generations. But Todd Koehnke and Tim Macklin have made it their mission to dump millions of old shells back in. David Schechter reports.

Mystic

A nonprofit organization in Connecticut is collecting used oyster shells from around 50 local seafood restaurants and returning them to the waters of Long Island Sound. The recycled shells provide an ideal surface for baby oysters to attach and grow, helping to restore overfished oyster beds and support marine biodiversity.

The program, funded by state grants, ensures that shells are cured for a year to eliminate invasive species before being placed back in the water. This effort prevents the shells from ending up in landfills and contributes to a healthier ocean environment by filtering water, preventing erosion, and offering habitat to numerous marine species.

Why used oyster shells get recycled back into water

Fishermen have taken oysters out of these Connecticut waters for generations. We're loading it up on boats and they're bringing it out into Long Island Sound. It's the best, but Todd Kanky and Tim Macklin are about to dump millions of old shells back in. It's amazing that two guys can do all of this work. Oyster beds are critical to a healthy ocean, filtering water, preventing erosion, and providing a home for an estimated 300 different species. This is a recycled shell in an aquatic circle of life. Old shells also provide the ideal surface for baby oysters to latch on and grow, sometimes several to a shell. We're almost at 700,000 pounds in two years. The mission of this two person nonprofit called Collective Oyster Recycling and Restoration is to help restore the health of Connecticut's overfished oyster beds. We've been taking it out of the sound for over 100 years and nobody's really putting it back in. It's funded by state grants and is the newest addition to a list of existing programs in most states on the Atlantic Coast and on the Gulf, and it starts with. You got any over there? Collecting shells from some 50 Connecticut seafood restaurants that leave them in buckets out back. After that, the shells cure for a year in this pile enough time to kill invasive species so as not to contaminate the sound. You do a tremendous amount of schlepping. Yeah, yeah, it's good for the waistline. We just move. Shell really is what we do, and nature does all of the work. It's a problem if it's going to landfill and it's a problem. If nobody steps up, you just want to twist back and forth, right? I got something moved. One of the restaurants they collect from is the Oyster Club in Mystic, CT. Cheers, Chef Renee 2 Ponce says they serve 4 to 6000 oysters a week. Some of the nearly 2 billion that they eat every year. Delicious when these guys showed up, they're like, hey, can we have your oyster shells? We were like, who are you at first? But then we were like, yes, Oh my God, absolutely. We have so many. It's important to make sure that we are doing our part to like help make the world better and making our ecosystem stronger. These are so good from table to bucket. Bobcat to deck their recycling in Ocean Staple. Cheers the oysters so we can all enjoy it. Again and again for eye on America. I'm David Schechter in Mystic, CT.

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