Sharing Knowledge & Solutions in Ålesund
Date of issue: April 30, 2018
Norway Conference 2018
The 2nd international Circular Ocean conference in Ålesund 18th-19th of April 2018 gathered over 70 actors from industry, government, NGOs and academia to discuss circular business models and fishing gear resource management.
The conference was part of the NTNU Sustainability days in Ålesund, which also encompassed seminars, meetings and events related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Speakers from Norway, UK, Denmark and Germany presented current knowledge on recycling technology, circular design and business models as well as management practices for marine plastic waste and fishing gear.
An important objective of the event was to bring together SMEs and startups providing products and services for marine plastic waste recycling and learn from their experiences. Contributions from Fishy Filaments, Plasto, Containerservice Ottersøy, Marine Recycling Network, WWF Germany and Artek Technology Center showed that there are a lot of promising activities taking place on fishing gear recycling, but that there are still technological, financial and environmental challenges to be overcome. The event also provided a state of the art knowledge on monitoring and analyzing marine waste and fishing gear with contributions from The Institute for Marine Research, SALT, NTNU and ERI. Learning more about the abundance and distribution of marine plastic waste both in the sea and on land is important to develop successful systems for recovery, waste management and recycling. The conference ended with a session on tools for managing derelict fishing gear where GGGI, Runde Environmental Center, Clean Nordic Oceans/The Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Norwegian Fishermen Associated presented and discussed legislative and technological opportunities.
Annik Magerholm Fet, professor and Vice-Rector at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology closed the conference stating that “industry, government and research has developed much since our last conference in Ålesund in 2016. As the marine plastic waste issue has come high on the agenda the last few years, there are more opportunities than ever to take action and ensure safe, environmentally friendly and financially viable solutions to this problem. We all have the responsibility to contribute to best-practice management of fishing gear through its entire lifecycle. NTNU will continue to focus on marine plastic waste both in Circular Ocean as well as other projects in the time to come, seeking a strong international collaboration with actors from industry, NGOs, stakeholder associations and government”.
Conference Presentations
DAY ONE
Welcome – Anik Fet, Vice Principal, NTNU, Ålesund, Norway
Accelerating Circular Economy Initiatives to Combat Marine Plastic Waste – Neil James, Project Manager, Environmental Research Institute (Scotland)/Circular Ocean
Innovation Process, Operations & Funding to Address Fishing Industry Waste – Ian Falconer, Founder/CEO Fishy Filaments (UK)
Recycling Options for Marine Plastic Waste in the Baltic Sea – Andrea Stolte, Project Manager, Ghostnets WWF/MARELITT (Germany)
Enabling Local Communities to Utilise Waste Fishing Gear in Construction Materials – Lisbeth Ottosen, Professor, Technical University of Denmark/Artctic Technology Centre
Circular Design Solutions for Marine Plastic & Derelict Fishing Gear – Claire Potter, Director Claire Potter Design (UK)
Challenges & Opportunities for Collecting & Recycling End of Life Fishing Gear – Christina Dixon, Campaign Manager, World Animal Protection/Global Ghost Gear Initiative
The Role of Ports in Marine Plastic Waste Recycling – Results from Feasibility Study in the NPA Region – Martin Charter, Professor CfSD, University of the Creative Arts (UK)
Waste Handling Value Chain – from Marine Plastic Waste to Secondary Raw Material – Helene Lindberg, Quality Manager, Containerservice Ottersøy (Norway)
Closing the Loop – Fishing Gear Recycling for Plastic Injection Moulding – Runar Stenerud, Project Manager, PLASTO (Norway)
Setting up and Industrial Cluster Utilising Marine Plastic Waste – Børge Bentsen, Project Leader Fiskeriparken / Marine Recycling Network (Norway)
DAY TWO
Observation & Documentation of Marine Plastic Waste – Lene Buhl Mortensen, Marine Biologist, Institute of Marine Research, MAREANO Project (Norway)
Fishing for Litter Results from Norway – Erlend Standal, Researcher, SALT (Norway)
Fishing Gear Material Flows in Norway/Results from Fisherman Survey – Paritosh Deshpande, PHD Candidate, NTNU (Norway)
Threat of Marine Plastic to Seabirds in the NPA Region – Nina J. O’Hanlon, Post-doctoral Research Associate, Seabord Ecologist, Environmental Research Institute (Scotland)
Prevention, Mitigation & Cure, Key Tools to Manage Fishing Gear Responsibly – Christina Dixon, Campaign Manager, World Animal Protection/Global Ghost Gear Initiative
Technologies & Practices for Gear Detection & Retrieval – Nils-Roar Hareide, Research Scientist, Runde Environmental Centre (Norway)
Clean Nordic Oceans International Collaboration on Fishing Gear Retrieval – Gjermund Langedal, Senior Advisor, Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries (Norway)
The Development of Best Practice Measures to Reduce ALDFG & its Impact at Intergovernmental Level – Joanna Toole, Consultant, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (UK)
Practices & Procedures to Mitigate Gear Loss – Sonja Elin Kleven Jakobsen, Senior Advisor, Norwegian fishermen association (Norway)