Millions of pounds of oyster shells are being recycled to help restore the Louisiana coast

One night in March, Jason Pitre left his Bayou Rosa Oyster Farm in Leeville with sacks of oysters bound for a fundraiser in New Orleans. He’d just pulled those oysters from the waters of Bayou Lafourche, the same his family has worked for four generations.

As he opened each oyster, he knew that eventually their shells would be headed back to the coastal again.

The shells were collected during the event and fed into a stream of oyster shells, measured in the millions of pounds, that will be used to restore Louisiana oyster reefs. That’s helping cultivate more oysters, boosting ecosystems around them and contributing to coastal restoration efforts.

“I know the effect these reefs have on our living shoreline,” said Pitre, a member of the United Houma Nation who counts oyster farming as part of his heritage. “It’s rewarding to know that what I grow will go back into the water to help the coastal restoration fight that we’re in. It’s this whole circle of life being completed.”

Pitre was one of a half dozen oyster farmers serving samples of their harvests at Shell-a-Bration, the annual fundraiser held at Audubon Zoo for the Oyster Shell Recycling Program. The initiative is part of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, a New Orleans-based nonprofit that advocates to protect the state’s coast.

The Oyster Shell Recycling Program works with restaurants to collect oyster shells that would otherwise be headed to the landfill and puts them back to work for the coast.

Restoring the loop

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The shells become the building blocks for reef restoration projects, and the coalition has been working specifically with indigenous communities, selecting project areas where they can help protect sites of special cultural and environmental significance.

The program is 10 years old, but the idea is not a new one.

“It’s filling a gap in a process of returning shells to the wild, a process that’s been around since people started eating oysters, because people always knew they provide habitat for more oysters,” said Darrah Bach, recycling program manager for the coalition.

But without direct connections to oyster lease holders, most restaurants simply throw shells in the trash like all the other kitchen waste.

“We’re restoring that loop, giving restaurants a way to get shell back to where it can do the most good,” she added.

Oyster reefs beget more oysters. Baby oysters need a platform on which to grow, and the shells of other oysters are ideal for this purpose. As oysters layer up upon oysters, reefs form and grow higher and thicker.

This creates habitat for other sea life, but the benefits of healthy and restored reefs are far reaching. They can serve as buffers between the open water, communities and habitats along the coast. During storms, reefs act as underwater speed bumps, and even in calmer times they break up the wave energy approaching fragile coastal features.

One vivid example is playing out in Plaquemines Parish, in Adams Bay, where the coalition and its partners deployed 150 tons of shells to restore a reef to better protect what’s known as the Lemon Tree Mound.

While the space is an ancient Native American archaeological site, saltwater intrusion and wave action killed its namesake trees and threatened to wipe out the mound. Since the reef restoration began here in 2021, the mound’s grassy footprint has been expanding behind this rampart-like reef.

Expanding the harvest

The Oyster Shell Recycling Program has steered some 14 million pounds of oyster shells back to the coast over 10 years, and the 30 restaurants participating now contribute about 1.5 million pounds a year.

To customers the recycling process is largely invisible, and for restaurants it’s simply a matter of steering shells to bins for recycling collection. Many of the biggest names in the New Orleans oyster scene take part, including Acme Oyster House, Felix’s, Drago’s, Casamento’s and Sidecar.

Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House in the French Quarter was the first restaurant to sign up for the program, and today, every one of the roughly 2,000 oysters shucked daily at its busy oyster bar join the reef restoration effort. When the same restaurant group acquired historic Pascal’s Manale Restaurant last year, one of the first orders of business was to add its oyster bar to the program also.

Recycling bins at the restaurants are emptied several times a week, and the shells are hauled to a curing site in St. Bernard Parish, where they sit in the sun and open air until they’re ready to deploy.

The program charges restaurants for the service, likening it to any other recycling or waste disposal service.

However, now there’s help available to cover that cost. In January, the state enacted a new tax credit for restaurants that recycle oyster shells, at a rate of $1 per 50 pounds of shells recycled.

“We’re hoping that will be a big motivator for more restaurants to join the program,” Bach said.

The tax credit comes as the coalition is also expanding the geographical reach of its recycling program. Right now, all participating restaurants are in the New Orleans area, but the group wants to add restaurants in Baton Rouge and is now looking for contractors to haul shells. The group is eyeing potential further expansion with restaurants around Lafayette and Houma.

Making connections

Shell collection was temporarily shut down in the early phases of the pandemic, when restaurants were closed. But participation grew as restaurants started coming back, with assistance from one of the coalition’s partners.

Chef’s Brigade is a grassroots group that quickly formed to help keep New Orleans restaurants in business during the bleakest part of the pandemic — and founder Troy Gilbert, an advocate for coastal restoration, connected many of these restaurants with the recycling program along the way.

Today Chef’s Brigade also operates a program called Chefs on Boats, which brings restaurant staff out on boat tours to the front lines of coastal loss and restoration, including to oyster reefs built on recycled shells.

“They’re making that connection between what they’re doing in their restaurants, where it comes from and the good those shells could do again, why it’s worth making the change in their operations,” Bach said.

The effort has also become a recruiting tool for the recycling program, giving a firsthand perspective on the difference restaurants can make through one change in their operations. As more people learn about the oyster shell recycling program, it’s also making that connection between restaurant customers and oyster aficionados.

The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana has public access recycling bins situated around New Orleans, where people who open oysters at home can recycle shells at no charge. The public can support the program through contributions, and there are also hands-on volunteer opportunities with shell bagging events through the year.

“Another way people can support this is just to ask at the restaurants they visit if they recycle,” she said. “That helps build awareness.”