Treat Yourself to Oysters at Local Restaurants this Holiday Season!
Sussex County – Treat Yourself to Oysters at Local Restaurants this Holiday Season! When you order oysters or clams from a participating restaurant, that shell will be reused in the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays’ “Don’t Chuck Your Shucks” oyster shell recycling program. With your help, we can achieve the program’s goal of 4,000 bushels in 2017!
A partnership between the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays and local restaurants, this program collects discarded oyster shell for use in oyster restoration projects in the Inland Bays.
“Don’t Chuck Your Shucks officially began back in 2014 but has really taken off in the last year,” explains Center Program Coordinator, Bob Collins. “We have some fantastic local restaurants on board and the program has become wildly popular. Local restaurants are enthusiastically participating because they care about the health of the Inland Bays just as much as we do.”
When you visit one of the participating restaurants, the spent shells (shucks) from your plate will be separated from the waste stream and put into special bins. Next, the shell is taken to a collection area where it will sit in the sun and “cure” for a minimum of six months before it is recycled for local habitat restoration projects such as Living Shorelines and Oyster Gardening.
Closing out its 2017 season on a high note, the program is just short of its 4,000-bushel goal – but you can help! Order a dozen (or more) and share the holiday spirit with your friends – and the Inland Bays. A list of participating restaurants is available at www.inlandbays.org/shucks. Be sure to ask your server if they participate in the “Don’t Chuck Your Shucks” shell recycling program.
“All of our restaurant partners are participating because they know that clean Inland Bays contribute to the economic vibrancy of the area,” Collins continues, “The cleaner the waters, the better business is. But most of these partners also value the Bays for quality of life reasons. And they participate in DCYS for that reason as well.”
The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays is a non-profit organization established in 1994, and is one of 28 National Estuary Programs. With its many partners, the CIB works to preserve, protect and restore Delaware’s Inland Bays–the water that flows into them, and the watershed around them.
For more information call Katie young at 226-8105×109, send an email to communications@inlandbays.org or, visit our website: www.inlandbays.org
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