St. Pete Installing Line Recycling Bins
Anglers fishing from the half-mile stretch of seawall along Pass-a-Grille Way in St. Pete Beach will soon have plenty of places to dispose of discarded fishing line in an environmentally friendly way.
In an admirable move to protect seabirds, sea turtles and other marine life from entanglement in this deadly type of marine debris, City of St. Pete Beach officials have approved the installation of 14 special receptacles into which anglers can deposit their tangles of unwanted monofilament. Nicknamed “monotubes,” parts of the containers were donated by the City of St Petersburg and built by Tampa Bay Watch volunteers with special care to match the appealing aesthetics of this popular fishing area stretching north and south from the Merry Pier.
Tampa Bay Watch has teamed with Blue Turtle Society to provide ongoing maintenance of the monotubes. Monofilament collected by Blue Turtle Society volunteers will be shipped to the Berkley Fishing Conservation Institute to be recycled or re-purposed. Installation of the new monotubes by Tampa Bay Watch and Blue Turtle Society volunteers was set to take place July 15 and July 17.
Tampa Bay Watch is a nonprofit organization established in 1993 that performs a variety of habitat restoration and protection activities throughout the year, utilizing thousands of volunteers to help the bay. Want to get involved? Visit http://www.tampbaywatch.org today!
BlueTurtleSociety is a new local environmental working on several projects to encourage people to connect with and care for the natural world through technology, art, information and volunteerism. Visit http://www.facebook.com/blueturtlesociety or e-mail info@blueturtlesociety.org.