Fishermen Paid to Catch Trash.

In an effort to ease pressure on dwindling fish populations, the EU is going to pay fishermen to catch plastic instead.

The project will be tested first in the Mediterranean and all the plastic rounded up will be recycled. The mission is two-fold: clean up the oceans to protect marine and human life and ease the overfishing problem. Overfishing is caused largely by fishermen killing more than their alloted quota and dumping the excess fish, usually dead, back into the sea.

Every year, in the North Sea alone, over 1 million tons of fish are caught and thrown back dead into the ocean. 

The plastic cleanup program will be funded initially by EU member states but it’s creators hope that the funds generated from recycling the trash will make the program self-sustaining.

This is what I’ve been hoping to see for a long time. Pay fishermen to stop fishing and use their boats to clean the ocean, funding the whole operation with the recycling money. Sounds perfect. Now if we could pay coal miners to plant trees I would die happy.