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RIG RECYCLE
Diverts recreational fishing items from landfill
The Rig Recycle program is an Australian-first program that collects selected recreational fishing and packaging items and diverts them from landfill through an innovative repair, reuse and recycle framework.
The project connects recreational fishers, community clean-up participants, recreational fishing retailers and suppliers, social enterprises and community partners in a holistic and truly circular program that fills a current recycling gap.
The aim is to divert specified recreational fishing items and packaging accessories from becoming litter in the environment or being disposed of in landfill by changing the recycling behaviours of consumers and retailers.
Get in touch if you would like to host a Rig Recycle station.
Find a station location near you
Take a look at the map to view Rig Recycle stations around Australia. We have plenty of locations up and down the coast of QLD, NSW and Victoria as well as a few locations in WA.
Did you know?
Data from the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) Database shows that fishing line is one of the the top 10 items found during clean-up events, with over half a million metres removed so far. That’s an average of 125m of line from every clean-up event around the country!
- Take your recreational fishing items to a Rig Recycle station near you
- The items get collected, audited and entered into the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) Database
- The items are either repaired for reuse or recycled
- Fishing line
- Plastic line spools (that you buy your line on)
- Handline spools
- Hooks – preferably in good condition (not rusty)
- Sinkers – lead or other, in any condition
- Swivels – preferably in good condition (not rusty)
- Lures
- Floats
- Bait packaging, or any other smelly item
- Soft plastic packaging, recyclability is variable
- Soft plastic disposable body/tail
- Rods and reels
- Life jackets
- Flares. These should be disposed of appropriately – see your State or Territory guidelines
You can also download the Recycle Mate app, put in your location and the item and it’ll tell you where to recycle it!
Fishing can produce a lot of waste, but this initiative helps reuse and recycle as much as possible to keep your fishing gear circulating and out of landfill. Responsible fishers love their local environment and reducing waste is just another way they are getting involved in looking after it.
When the “Look After your Tackle” campaign was launched to reduce recreational fishing litter in 2020 as part of the ReefClean program, we also identified that there was no recycling program available for recreational fishing items and their single-use packaging.
It seemed like a natural progression for the Tangaroa Blue team to work on finding a solution that would divert recreational fishing items either collected from clean-up events, or that fishers were looking to dispose of, from ending up in landfill.
So the Rig Recycle program was developed!
Starting as a trial using data submitted from clean-ups into the Australian Marine Debris Initiative Database, as well as feedback from recreational fishers and retailers, the need for the Rig Recycle collection and recycling system, that was able to accept not just marine debris items and broken and unwanted fishing gear, but also single-use packaging items from within the recreational fishing industry like fishing line spools and hard plastic tackle packaging, was identified.
The Rig Recycle program, in its collection infancy, hads 5 major goals which seek to ensure best practice across the entire supply chain and design processes:
- Recover – of fishing litter reducing environmental harm through the Look After Your Tackle campaign.
- Reuse – the reuse of recovered and unwanted items for a second use.
- Repair – through a network of recreational fishing organisations, items were it can be repaired, giving them a second life with social fishing charities.
- Recycle – all hard plastic recovered in the collection will be diverted to a circular recycling framework, providing recycled feedstock for new products, which themselves are recyclable through the Rig Recycle program.
- Reduce – by providing data from the collection program the types of material used in recreational fishing industry equipment and packaging can form staged goals for increasing their recycling feedstock content, designing better packaging solutions, replacing virgin materials and investing in local manufacturing solutions.
ReefClean is funded by the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and delivered by Tangaroa Blue Foundation.
The Victoria Rig Recycle project is supported by the Victorian Government’s Circular Economy Communities Fund.
The NSW Rig Recycle project is supported by the NSW Recreational Fishing Trusts and delivered by Tangaroa Blue Foundation.
For more information about the Rig Recycle program, please email info@tangaroablue.org
Take a look at Rig Recycle stations in action across the country:
Tackle Back
Your personal Rig Recycle station. The Tackle Back empowers recreational fishers to preserve their favourite fishing spots by responsibly disposing of fishing-related waste.
Designed to clip onto your belt or tackle box, the Tackle Back can go in your kayak or in the boat (in fact – anywhere you go fishing!), so you have a personal bin wherever you are. Put any broken recreational fishing gear or gear you find along the way into your Tackle Back and deposit it in your local Rig Recycle station.
We encourage fishers to fish responsibly and always to try to retrieve any fishing line, hooks, or lures from snags – so these items don’t end up in the environment and hurt wildlife.
The Tackle Back project, developed by Tangaroa Blue Foundation, is currently being trialed in Mandurah WA, proudly funded by the City of Mandurah, TackleWorld Miami, Coastal Waste Warriors and Estuary Guardians Mandurah. Supported by WA Seabird Rescue and Recfishwest.
How to use your Tackle Back
- Download the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) app, on Android or Apple.
- When out fishing, put any broken fishing items into your Tackle Back.
- We want to know what you have collected! When you have finished fishing, safely count and enter what items are in your Tackle Back into the AMDI app, so we can use the data to create more fishing gear recycling initiatives for the future.
- Fishing line, hooks, lures, sinkers, swivels, floats (they must be clean!) can all be recycled in our Rig Recycle stations.
- Please dispose of any items that aren’t clean or can’t be recycled in general waste.
- Reuse your Tackle Back over and over again. And when your Tackle Back is at the end of its life, put it in your local Rig Recycle station to be recycled!
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