MORRISONS has extended its partnership with Odyssey Innovation for another year to continue tackling ‘ghost fishing gear’ and to help save British coastal wildlife and habitats.

Over the last four years the Bradford-based supermarket chain has worked with Odyssey Innovation, a company that recovers and recycles waste marine plastic, to found and run the Net Regeneration Scheme which has seen fishermen in the South West responsibly recycle 100 tonnes of waste fishing gear to date.

Morrisons is the first and only supermarket to back a scheme which aims to tackle ghost fishing gear in British waters.

Working with Odyssey Innovation - and in collaboration with Exeter City Council, Plymouth University and Seafish - Morrisons has helped to install waste skips at 10 ports across the South West to help fishermen to recycle unwanted or unusable gear. ‘Ghost fishing gear’ includes any abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear, which often goes unseen. It is one of the deadliest wastes for sea wildlife, accounting for 10 per cent of global marine litter. The United Nations expects the amount of plastic in oceans to treble in the next 20 years.

Odyssey Innovation’s Net Regeneration Scheme is the only one in the UK to offer free recycling of all types of fishing nets.

It includes polyethylene trawl, nylon and other plastic generated by the fishing industry. Everything that can be recycled in the UK is done so, with specialist companies in Europe recycling problematic materials. The scheme covers the cost of transporting gear and the full recycling loop, with some plastic waste being turned into sea kayaks.

The programme also helps to reduce CO2 by putting recycled plastic back into the economy, which has a significant CO2 saving over using new virgin plastic.

Joe Prosho, Aquaculture Manager at Morrisons, said: “Morrisons is one of the UK’s biggest suppliers of fresh British fish with our own fishing business in the South West and we are determined to play our full part in cleaning up the oceans to preserve marine life and protect the planet.

“We want to continue our partnership with Odyssey Innovation by supporting the Net Regeneration Scheme to contribute to reducing old fishing gear that is a problem for so much wildlife.”

Morrisons has committed to a 50 per cent reduction across its own-brand primary plastic packaging by 2025.

Initiatives introduced over the last 12 months will remove 9,000 tonnes of unnecessary or problematic plastic each year.

More than 83 per cent of Morrisons own-brand plastic packaging is now able to be recycled.