Zeke’s Landing Marina, the first Clean Marina in Alabama, and Protein Products, Inc., a leader in servicing premier pet food companies, have created a way to keep fish carcasses from being taken to landfills.

A newly launched fish recycling program, sponsored in part by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, is repurposing fish parts that are left behind after charter boat crews clean their customers’ catch. The marina, located in Orange Beach, Ala., is working with PPI to turn the fish waste into pet food.

“Traditionally, the fish carcasses have gone inside two garbage bags and then gone in a daily dump trash receptacle,” said Tom Steber, general manager of Zeke’s Landing Marina. “Now, we place the carcasses into a refrigerated trailer. When it’s almost full, arrangements are made for the trailer to be picked up at night. It’s carried off along with the smell.”

The refrigerated trailer is lined with large bins, also known as totes, that each hold anywhere from 2,400 to 3,000 pounds of fish carcasses. Read more about this post at Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant.