Last week, over 17 tons of waste fishing nets were transported to recycling from Greece, thanks to our partner DIOPAS. Since last year, over 32 tons of old fishing nets from Greek fishermen and fish farmers have gone into the recycling process thus ensuring that less waste nets might end up in the Greek seas.
Ioakim Diamantidis of DIOPAS S.A. has taken over the family business of building and importing fishing nets: “Until the early 1960s the nets used in Greece were made of cotton yarn which the fishermen had to hand dry every day to prevent from rotting. Since their invention, nylon nets provide a convenient alternative solution for them. Today, through this cooperation, the useless nets become a part of the circular economy. It’s a step in the right direction.”
The waste nets collected by DIOPAS will be cleaned, sorted and prepared for recycling by Nofir AS, a company established in 2008 in Norway, aiming to reduce marine pollution caused by discarded equipment from the fishing and farming industries. In the next step, the nylon nets will be delivered to Aquafil to be transformed and regenerated into ECONYL® yarn, a high-quality raw material used to create new products, such as socks, swimwear, underwear and carpets.
