Many of the fish traps discarded today have high residual value. Even though the nets are no longer used for fishing, they can still have a new life and usefulness. Nofir has received funds from the Norwegian Retailers' Environment Fund to convert decommissioned fish traps into sports nets. The goal is to reuse as much as possible, recycle what cannot be reused, and send only a minimum to energy recovery. This will be a significant improvement from the current situation.
Many of the sports nets used in Norway today are made of lower quality, which means they are quickly damaged. When they are no longer in use, they often end up in landfills or are incinerated. Nofir is attempting to solve several environmental problems at once in this project. They will develop a return scheme for sports nets that would otherwise go directly to incineration. At the same time, they will make sports nets from decommissioned fish nets of higher quality, which will extend the lifespan of the sports nets while ensuring that decommissioned fish nets gain a prolonged life.
Higher up in the waste hierarchy
Nofir has long been an important actor for the fisheries and aquaculture industry. Every year, they collect approximately 6000 tons of gear from fisheries and aquaculture. Most of it is recycled, and what cannot be recycled is incinerated. In this project, Nofir aims to solve plastic problems even higher up in the waste hierarchy, and manage to reuse the fish nets as sports nets, instead of recycling them into other products.
Targets Sports Clubs and Municipalities
The target group includes everyone who has sports nets, but primarily sports federations, sports clubs, and municipalities. If stakeholders are going to replace their sports nets, Nofir will offer both a return scheme for the old sports nets and new sports nets with a low environmental footprint and good quality. The old sports nets will be sent to Nofir's factory in Lithuania. There, they will be repaired so that they can be reused as sports nets, or sent for reuse. Nets that cannot be repaired or recycled will be sent for incineration.
Enormous Potential
Nofir estimates that in the startup phase they will be able to collect and deliver 300 sports nets with an average weight of 50 kg, which will prevent emissions from incineration and replace the use of virgin plastics in new nets.
In total, this project alone could contribute to a reduction in the use of virgin plastics by 15,000 kg, increased recycling of 15,000 kg of plastic, and a reduction of greenhouse gases by 108,000 kg CO2 equivalents, which is equivalent to approximately 1,000 airplane passengers flying from Oslo to London. This is just in Norway. Nofir already has customers in other countries, and if more people become aware of their products and services, the project could have enormous ripple effects.