INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Bright blue and green tubes placed around Indian River County are part of a growing effort to keep discarded fishing line out of local waterways.
The collection bins are maintained through the Fishing Line Recycling Program, which Coastal Connections took over nearly two years ago after receiving support from One Lagoon.
“With their support, we pretty much were able to completely revitalize the effort of recycling fishing line across Indian River County,” said Kendra Bergman, executive director of Coastal Connections.
Since then, the program has expanded both its visibility and its operations, including improvements to the bins and access to collection site information online.
“And then ultimately integrated a new monitoring protocol utilizing a large number of community volunteers to monitor these fishing line collection tubes two times a month, every month, and maintain them, keep them clean, keep them attractive,” Bergman said.
Volunteers now help oversee 49 collection sites countywide. Every three months, they also gather for sorting days to separate fishing line from hooks and other tackle.
Once sorted, the materials are divided into braided line and monofilament line. The monofilament — a recyclable plastic — is packaged and sent out for processing.
“It allows us to take that plastic monofilament line and then package it up and then send it off to the Berkeley Institute, where they’re the ones who physically go melt that material down, turn it back into plastic pellets so where it can be turned into new fishing gear,” Bergman said.
Other materials are repurposed locally. Braided line is reused for community projects, while usable tackle is returned to local partners.
“We have been actively re-spooling all of our braided lines so that it could be used for community projects and crafts and arts with kids and other people in town. And then all of the tackle and gear, like weights or hooks, get donated back to whichever tackle shop in town we partner with, so that they can gift it for free to young little kids learning how to fish,” she said.
The program has already processed a significant amount of material since its relaunch.
“Since then, we’ve recycled over 409 miles of plastic monofilament line. So that’s just such an incredible number,” Bergman said.
Beyond reducing waste, the effort also addresses environmental hazards posed by discarded fishing line, particularly to marine life.
“About 40 percent of our non-hatchling sea turtle strandings are caused by entanglements. The only threat that is more deadly is interactions with boats, so boat strikes,” Bergman said.
Bergman said despite that danger, anglers themselves have played a major role in supporting the initiative.
“Some of our biggest advocates in environmental conservation are the hunters and fishers of the world because they want to make sure that they can hunt and fish for years and years into the future. So they actually are some of our biggest advocates for conservation. So it’s not surprising that some of our biggest contributors are fishers themselves who just collect that material after it’s been tangled or something happens, and then they drop it into one of our conveniently located bins,” she said.
Organizers say volunteers remain essential to the program’s success, particularly as the next sorting event approaches in June at Walking Tree Brewery.