Sustainable fish farming is more than replacing wild caught with farmed fish. Increasingly consumers are demanding that farms are operated sustainably, minimising local environmental impacts and tackling wider climate impacts. Copper alloy mesh has a central role to play in achieving these goals.
Local Environmental Impact
The conditions for improved fish health from farming with Copper Alloy Mesh also improve the environment the farm is located in. By reducing biofouling and cleaning frequency, cleaning discharges to the local environment are reduced by 70-85% as well.
Healthier fish stock need less feed to grow at the same rate reducing feed waste and nitrogen emissions, and they need fewer treatments and antibiotics with associated benefits to consumers and the environment they are grown in.
Copper Alloy Mesh is a key enabler in locating farms away from coastal environments to less environmentally sensitive high energy and open ocean sites. It’s strength and rigidity will withstand the forces it’s exposed to and its strong enough to maintain excellent volume in heavy seas and currents.
In addition, with lower cleaning and maintenance requirements, copper alloy mesh nets are ideally suited to sites where access for prolonged work periods may not be safe or is only intermittent.
Climate Change Impacts
When used in aquaculture and marine farming, farm systems incorporating Copper Alloy Mesh reduce CO2 emissions and have lower cumulative energy demand compared to traditional materials.
These climate change gains are driven by lower fossil fuel consumption during operations, and the farm infrastructure uses less materials and the materials used have lower CO2 emissions in their production.
A 2015 life cycle impact assessment study PDF found a 49% reduction in CO2 emissions and 52% reduction in cumulative energy demand when using Copper Alloy Mesh. Read the full article here.