Atlantic ChiCan Seafood on Cape Sable Island has come up with a fix to help prevent lobster bands from their facility from making it to the ocean.
Although there were practices in place to avoid those bands from making their way into the ocean a significant amount still did. That issue was brought to the attention of the company by Angela Riley, the founder of Scotian Shores, a coastal conservation group.
ChiCan Chief Operations Manager John Nickerson took Riley’s call and described how it went, “I think she called expecting to get someone who didn’t care, but as soon as she explained to me what she was seeing I reached out to my Quality Control team for a solution,”
After a few days of discussions Scott Weare, the head of maintenance at the plant came up with the idea for mesh pipe socks to be put on all outflow pipes.
Weare then purchased the necessary supplies and sewed together some simple mesh socks that were, estimating the cost of each one at around $20.
Pipe socks affixed to outflow pipes at the ChiCan facility on Cape Sbale Island, NS. Photo: ChiCan Seafood
Nickerson says he’s pleased with the results he’s seen so far and they intend to keep using the socks indefinitely.
Cape Sable Island is home to another 14 seafood facilities so the change at ChiCan is unlikely to result in the island not seeing any more lobster bands put ChiCan believes the idea could be implemented at other facilities as well.
