North Wildwood Partners with Wetlands to Recycle

North Wildwood Public Works Superintendent Harry Wozunk has been working with Kathryn Sellers, Conservation Coordinator at the Wetlands Institute to make available monofilament recycling stations in our City.

Monofilament is made of a single fiber of plastic and it’s the most commonly used material for fishing line on the market today. Its strength and resistance to deterioration make it ideal for fishers to capture their prey.

But when lines are let loose in the waters, the same properties capture and destroy all sorts of unintentional victims, including marine life, birds, scuba divers and even boat propellers.

In addition, it can take over 600 years to decompose!

In an effort to reduce the amount of monofilament fishing line that ends up in our local waterways, The Wetlands Institute has developed a Monofilament Recycling Station Program in alliance with the “Reel in and Recycle” effort initiated by Boat U.S. Foundation.

The monofilament recycling stations are made of PVC pipe and essentially look like candy canes. They can be attached to the side of a piling, along pier railings or can be assembled on a free standing stake. They are placed in areas where fishermen can toss their fishing line into the receptacle at the end of the day.

The Wetlands Institute is responsible for receptacle installment and service, and so the program costs the City nothing. The fishing line is collected on a fixed schedule and properly disposed of by sending it to the Berkeley Conservation Institute to be recycled into new plastic products such as park benches and tackle boxes.

North Wildwood now has three stations. At the Fifth Ave. Boat Ramp there is one large receptacle (33″ high x 6″ wide) mounted at the fish cleaning/bait station at ramp #2’s fishing pier.

At the Hereford Inlet Area there is one receptacle on a metal stake in Moore’s Public Parking Lot and one at Pine and Olde New Jersey avenues.

North Wildwood has a long record of being committed to saving the environment andthrough this program, the City and Wetlands Institute hope to inspire anglers to understand the nature of this hazard and be more responsible to avoid it.