SPANISH FISHING GROUP LAUNCHES PROJECT FOR RESPONSIBLE MANAGEMENT

Spanish fishing group launches project for responsible management. The Spanish Fisheries Confederation (CEPESCA) has launched the continuation of its RED-USE project (RED-USE II) to contribute to the future implementation of a responsible management model for fishing nets and gear that incorporates the criterion of extended responsibility of the producer for the sustainable treatment and processing of materials and promoting all the agents involved in their useful life cycle.

RED USE II will implement management model pilots in various ports in Spain and will measure their social, economic and environmental impact . Likewise, it will define a strategy with recommendations and best practices to extend these systems to the rest of the ports . The objective of these pilot tests is to generate the necessary knowledge to ensure that the new form of management can be scaled with minimal operational risk and in an economically sustainable manner.

RED USE II will also develop actions to raise awareness, sensitisation and collaboration of maritime-fishing actors around this problem , as well as on the importance of compliance with the new European regulations on plastics, the Waste Law and the Green Deal.

The project, which will last eight months, is developed in collaboration with the Biodiversity Foundation and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge , through the Pleamar Programme, co-financed by the FEMP , which will continue to promote the circular economy for the use of the useful life of the gear in the fishing sector.

The project now launched is a continuation of the one developed in 2021 (RED-USE), which concluded that a common management protocol in Spanish fishing ports for the treatment of waste from fishing gear would increase the guarantee of its correct management , as well as the amount of material managed, although the diversity of conditions in each port would require adapting it to each specific situation. Likewise, it determined that nylon fishing gear would be, a priori, more easily thermo-mechanically recyclable than high-density polyethylene (HDPE), with the latter being the most suitable chemical procedure for recycling.