This is the fifth full year of oyster shell recycling at Wellfleet’s restaurants. The Wellfleet Oyster Alliance provides restaurants with buckets to collect shells, and picks up the full buckets – eventually returning those shells to the water to help foster oyster reef habitat.
Alliance Operations Manager Erika Suneson said the program is free to restaurants and supports the industry for which the town is renowned.
"We're kind of closing the loop here in town, said Suneson. "The oysters are coming from here, the folks are eating them at the restaurants, and then we're taking the shell back. And it goes back into the harbor where it's used as a resource for habitat going forward."
Wellfleet residents kicked off the season on Wednesday with a celebration fundraiser at Pearl – one of the participating restaurants. There was a band, a raffle, vendors, and, naturally, lots of oysters.
Liv Woods was there representing the Massachusetts Oyster Project, which partners with the Wellfleet Oyster Alliance on the effort.
"Most people know oysters are filter feeders, but their other really magical thing is that they're reef builders," Woods said. "And one of the benefits of our shell recycling program is capturing the shell from the restaurants. Instead of it going into landfills, we can recapture those shells, dry them out for a year, and then those shells are used to rebuild oyster reefs."
Statewide, Woods said, they recovered 70,000 pounds of shell last year.
For people shucking oysters at home, she said shells can be recycled at most municipal transfer stations on the Cape. Her organization also oversees a couple of shell drop-off stations in Yarmouth, and is looking to add more in other towns.
As for the act of shucking an oyster, volunteer shucker Mark Howards shared some tips on technique and knife selection. He said the best knives have a good point at the top and a sharp edge. But, he said, practice is more important than the type of knife.
"When I first started doing it, it's like I was looking for a better knife and everything," Howards said. "The truth is, once you get the hang of doing it you can use a virtually any knife."
But his number one piece of advice?
“You got to make sure that it's cut off of the shell," Howards said, "because there's nothing worse than somebody trying to slurp down an oyster and then it's just kind of hanging halfway off the shell and halfway out of their mouth.”
