In today’s world, we have to be more and more conscious of our waste and impact on the environment around us. As a longtime outdoorsman and fisherman, minimizing my affect has always been close to my heart. It seems that nearly every time I wade a river I find copious amounts of trashed fishing line hanging in trees, stuck on log jams, and left to be forgotten. This biproduct of fishing proves year after year to be harmful to fish, birds, and mammals alike. With over ten percent of the ocean’s plastic pollution being attributed to fishing line, clearly this is a problem.

It is my goal to redesign how we recycle this material that is wasted so frequently as well as offer more options for anglers to participate. Recycled monofilament can be used to create a fairly strong nylon compound that I aim to utilize to create these designs from a ‘full circle’ perspective. Fishing line can be a tricky material to wrangle, hence the reel design mimicking an actual fishing reel to spool the line.

I aim to involve local DNR in the effort to clean our rivers and streams by implementing collection sites/times for these collectors. After analyzing results from the survey distributed, it became clear that anglers are willing to participate if given the right tools and knowledge. Through new processes and techniques, fishing line will be recycled more frequently and, in more areas, than ever before. With this solution, a greater sense of awareness can be brought to this problem and aid those outside of the immediate fishing community.