Samantha Impaglia 
New Jersey is teaming up with a national food distributor to recycle oysters and complete reef enhancement projects at the Jersey Shore. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced a partnership this week with Sysco Corporation that will help expand the state’s program that uses seafood shells recycled from restaurants for creation of oyster reefs. Read on for more about the project, the businesses participating, and how it will affect the Jersey Shore.
About the Partnership
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced on November 10th via a press release that it was partnering up with the Sysco Corporation, the world’s largest food distributor, to “create opportunities for a significant expansion of the state’s successful program that uses seafood shells recycled from restaurants for creation of oyster reefs.”
Once completed, the reefs will provide a variety of benefits, including the improvement of the ecological health of coastal waters, reducing waste to landfills, enhancing climate resilience, and benefitting local restaurants at the Jersey Shore. Sysco already has several projects in place to restore oyster reefs.
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The project will see the collection of discarded oyster and clam shells from restaurants across the Jersey Shore, which will then be provided to the NJDEP Fish + Wildlife’s Shell Recycling Program for oyster reef enhancement projects that could potentially expand to multiple sites along the state’s coastline. This will directly result in more planted reefs, which means more available habitat for oyster larvae to settle and grow — eventually leading to greater recruitment, population recovery, and ecosystem benefits. The larger goal is to create reef habitat connectivity across the coastal waters of the Jersey Shore.
“Oysters are a keystone species in our local estuaries and are essential to our mission to maintain healthy and productive marine ecosystems,” NJDEP Fish + Wildlife Assistant Commissioner Dave Golden said via a press release. “These reefs offer critical habitat for a wide range of recreational and commercially important marine species. By recycling shells, we reduce waste and support the recovery of ecosystems that benefit both marine life and coastal communities.”
Currently, discarded shells are put in the trash and sent to a landfill. Shell recycling is a practice that aims to collect what otherwise would be a waste product and beneficially reuse it for oyster reef enhancement efforts.
“Sysco is excited to partner with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to scale a project we have been interested in for several years,” John Yates, president of Buckhead Meat + Seafood’s Mid-Atlantic Region, said. “Preserving and restoring oyster reefs is not only important for the shellfish themselves but also to the broader marine ecosystem and our communities that rely on this for critical proteins.”
“I applaud Sysco’s deep commitment in helping us foster a more sustainable and resilient coastal environment,” Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette said. “This partnership will not only help to bolster local oyster reefs but also inspires the public to value and protect coastal ecosystems. Oysters filter water, improve water quality, and sequester carbon dioxide through the formation of their shells, helping provide a nature-based solution that addresses both climate adaptation and environmental enhancement.”
Participating Restaurants
The oyster shell recycling program began with a single restaurant partner at the Jersey Shore and was initially focused on the Atlantic City region. Now, the program has quickly grown to involve nearly every major casino and seafood restaurant in Atlantic City within just a few years, and serves 32 restaurant partners across Atlantic, Cape May, and Ocean counties.
The participating restaurants are as follows:
Atlantic County
- Barbera Seafood
- Bocca Coal Fired Bistro*
- Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa
- Dock’s Oyster House
- Dougherty’s Steakhouse & Raw Bar
- Golden Nugget Atlantic City Hotel & Casino
- Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City
- Harrah’s Resort & Casino Atlantic City
- Knife & Fork Inn
- Resorts Casino Hotel
- The Cove
- Tropicana Resort & Casino
Cape May County
- Harpoons on the Bay
- Lucky Bones Back Water Grille
- Matthews Seafood Market
- The Deauville Inn
- Tuckahoe Inn
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Since 2021, more than 45,000 bushels (more than 1,100 tons) of recycled shell along with shell purchased from local processors have been planted onto the reef system.
More information about the shell recycling program can be found here.
