Coordinating Oyster Shell Recycling on Cape Cod

In the Muck with Rick Handman

Rick Handman has been coming to Wellfleet for over 40 years, diligently harvesting shellfish on Wednesdays and Sundays through mid-October each year. Recently retired, he has gotten involved with causes he cares about including delivering for Meals on Wheels and volunteering at the Wellfleet Wildlife Sanctuary. And this past spring, while applying for a recreational shellfish permit for the season, he first learned about the Massachusetts Oyster Project.

Rick first met with two board advisors, Alexandra Coughlin and Sarah Valencik, in early May to talk about the logistics of coordinating this year’s oyster shell recycling program in the greater Wellfleet area. Rick remembers well that this first meeting involved a full day of cleaning buckets from the previous season (the pilot year for the program) on the side of his cottage, using a hose, scrubber and a little elbow grease. While Alexandra and Sarah got the program up and running, Rick has since taken the baton and now effectively manages 4 part-time shell recycling operators making daily pickups at 18 participating restaurants in Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans and Chatham.

Armed with over 100 customized buckets (with screw on lids), Rick ensures an early morning pickup of shell happens for each restaurant, 7 days a week. The operators bring the buckets full of oyster shells to the Town of Wellfleet’s transfer station, where shells are dumped into our growing pile. After that, every bucket is cleaned at the Department of Public Works and the buckets are then dropped off at all the participating restaurants. This all happens before lunch, which is crucial for participating restaurants and only possible because of the outstanding team of 5 showing up bright and early every morning.

You can find a list of all the participating restaurants on the Massachusetts Oyster Project website, and when you visit you’ll notice that these restaurants are happy to let their customers know about their participation in the program. After all, eating oysters that will get recycled means eating oysters for clean water. There tend to be stickers in the lobby, and you should be able to see the buckets next to the raw bar too.

As of early August, Rick and the team have picked up and recycled over 21,000 pounds of oyster shells, diverting them from the landfill and ultimately back into coastal waters to support new generations of native, water cleansing oysters.