This year the Marine Stewardship Council’s Sustainable Seafood Awards didn’t just celebrate leadership across the seafood industry – they embodied it.
We were proud to see discarded yabby trap netting that we had recovered during the Yabby Trap Round Up transformed into the trophies presented on the night. The netting came from old opera-house traps, once commonly used in inland waterways, but now banned across Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT, NSW and SA as they posed a significant danger to native wildlife – including turtles, platypus and rakali.
By recovering this material, we’re helping to keep our wildlife and waterways healthy.
This netting is being given a second life, with a small portion repurposed for these trophies that recognise and celebrate progress in sustainable seafood.
It’s a tangible demonstration of the circular economy in practice: turning waste into value and reducing environmental impact.
At a time when ghost gear remains one of the most persistent and overlooked challenges across both aquatic and marine environments, initiatives like this show that solutions don’t have to be complex. By rethinking materials and their lifecycle, we can shift from a linear ‘take, make, dispose’ model to one that keeps resources in use for longer.
The result is more than just a trophy – it’s a story of recovery, transformation and protection.
Congratulations to all of this year’s winners, whose leadership continues to drive positive change across the seafood industry.