Newport Beach may partner with local sportfishing charters to recycle fishing lines that could endanger marine life such as gulls and sea lions. Davey’s Locker and Newport Landing, sister companies that also offer whale-watching tours and dock in the Fun Zone area of Newport Harbor, want to place five receptacles around nearby Balboa Pier to capture anglers’ used monofilament. The companies would then send the lines to the Iowa headquarters of tackle manufacturer Berkley Fishing Inc. for a future as artificial reef-like structures in the Hawkeye State’s lakes.
“Recreational fishing is one of the most eco-friendly things you can do,” at least for catching one’s own food, said Jessica Roame, manager of marine education programs for Davey’s Locker and Newport Landing. “But the kind of waste that comes out of it is one of the most unfortunate things.”
That waste is the typically clear, thread-thin but tough plastic monofilament that can entangle or be ingested by opportunistic feeders such as gulls and sea lions that surround boats and piers looking for bait and guts, Roame said.
Even when properly discarded, the nonbiodegradable plastic lines sit in landfills. And errant lines in the water can snarl boat propellers, according to the California Division of Boating and Waterways.