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India’s 11,098-km coastline is facing a growing threat from abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear, including nets, ropes, traps and lines.
Such gear can continue trapping marine life long after it is lost or discarded, adding to marine litter, biodiversity loss and navigational risks.
Retrieved fishing gear is difficult to recycle because it is often wet, contaminated and made of mixed materials such as nylon, high-density polyethylene, floats, lead and metal.
Pilot initiatives in Tamil Nadu and by organisations such as HCL Foundation and One Earth Foundation show early momentum, but India still lacks a dedicated national framework for ALDFG management.
India’s 11,098-kilometre coastline is facing a growing challenge from abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG). This includes fishing nets, ropes, traps and lines. Even after it has been lost or discarded, such gear can continue trapping marine flora and fauna.
The United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that ALDFG makes up around 10 per cent of marine litter, with nearly 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear lost or abandoned globally every year. ALDFG also adds to the marine litter burden, creates navigational hazards and damages marine biodiversity.
India, the world’s third-largest fishing nation after China and Indonesia, is increasingly recognising ALDFG as a critical environmental and fisheries governance issue. While scientific research has repeatedly highlighted the scale of the problem, the country is now seeing the emergence of pilot initiatives, collection systems and recycling partnerships aimed at creating a circular economy for fishing gear waste.
Research institutions such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology and several coastal universities have documented growing concerns around the accumulation of synthetic fishing gear in marine ecosystems.
Nylon and polyethylene nets dominate India’s mechanised and motorised fisheries. These materials are used widely because they are durable, but that same durability means they can remain in the marine environment for decades once they become ALDFG.
Studies from India’s coastal states have identified several causes of gear loss:
rough weather and cyclones
gear conflicts between mechanised and artisanal fisheries
accidental net cutting
seabed entanglement
poor-quality gear design
deliberate discarding due to lack of disposal facilities
Researchers have also noted that modern fishing gear design itself contributes significantly to ALDFG generation. Multi-polymer gear components that combine nylon, high-density polyethylene, lead, floats and metal make repair and recycling difficult.
Lightweight synthetic nets, particularly those used by small-scale fishers, are often cheaper to replace than retrieve. As a result, damaged gear is frequently abandoned at sea or dumped near fishing harbours.
Unlike ordinary plastic waste, retrieved ALDFG is often heavily contaminated with salt, sand, fish residues, algae, shells and mixed marine debris
This makes cleaning and processing expensive. Another major issue is material heterogeneity. Fishing nets often contain multiple polymers stitched together, reducing the efficiency of conventional plastic recycling systems.
Researchers have repeatedly pointed out that India lacks specialised infrastructure for marine gear recycling. Most material recovery facilities are not equipped to process large, wet and contaminated fishing nets. Reverse logistics is another challenge, because fishing villages are dispersed across remote coastal regions.
Economic viability remains weak. The cost of collection, washing, segregation and transportation often exceeds the value of the recycled plastic. Without subsidies or producer responsibility systems, recycling models struggle to scale.
Some of India’s earliest responses to abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear are now emerging at the state and community level.
In Tamil Nadu, the Pollution Control Board has been among the first government institutions to formally address ALDFG management. In 2025, it announced plans to set up dedicated centres in coastal districts where fishers can return discarded or damaged fishing gear instead of dumping it into the sea.
The proposed system includes collection centres near fishing harbours, temporary storage and segregation, links with recycling agencies and awareness programmes for fishing communities.
This matters because Indian fishing harbours have historically lacked port reception facilities for damaged gear. As a result, much of this waste has remained outside formal waste management systems.
Non-governmental initiatives are also trying to close this gap by linking collection with recycling. The HCL Foundation has supported marine litter and coastal sustainability programmes focused on awareness, community engagement and waste management. In the ALDFG space, such efforts are increasingly centred on building circular economy linkages between fishing communities, local governments and recycling industries.
The aim is to ensure that discarded nets are not only collected, but also brought back into productive recycling streams.
Experts associated with these projects say long-term success will depend on whether fishers are integrated into the value chain through buy-back systems and other incentives. Without economic incentives, retrieval and collection efforts remain difficult to sustain.
The One Earth Foundation has also worked on marine litter and coastal waste management, with an emphasis on community participation. Its work has focused on encouraging responsible disposal practices and localised waste collection systems among fishers and coastal stakeholders.
A key lesson from these initiatives is that infrastructure alone is not enough. Awareness, fisher ownership and trust-building are equally important. Fishers are more likely to return damaged gear when collection points are accessible, when they do not fear penalties and when financial or social incentives are available.
Several pilot projects have shown that fisher cooperatives can become effective partners in ALDFG management when they are included in collection and monitoring systems.
Despite the growth of pilot initiatives, India still lacks a dedicated national framework for ALDFG management. Existing marine litter and plastic waste regulations only partially address fishing gear waste.
Key gaps include:
absence of mandatory gear marking systems
no extended producer responsibility mechanism for fishing gear
limited tracking of gear loss
lack of standards for recyclable gear design
insufficient integration between fisheries and pollution control authorities
Experts argue that India needs a dedicated national action plan on ALDFG, aligned with the Food and Agriculture Organization’s international guidelines on responsible fisheries and marine litter prevention.
For India to build an effective ALDFG management system, experts suggest a multi-pronged strategy.
Improve fishing gear design: Fishing gear manufacturers should move towards recyclable mono-material nets, biodegradable alternatives where feasible and standardised polymer identification systems.
Establish harbour-level collection systems: Every major fishing harbour should have dedicated ALDFG drop-off points, storage facilities and authorised recycling linkages.
Introduce fisher incentive mechanisms: Deposit-refund systems and buy-back programmes can significantly improve retrieval rates by making it worthwhile for fishers to bring damaged gear back to shore.
Develop recycling infrastructure: Specialised recycling hubs for marine plastics and fishing gear need to be established in coastal states. These facilities must be able to handle large, wet, contaminated and mixed-polymer fishing gear.
Integrate small-scale fisheries: Small-scale fisheries must be formally included in waste collection and monitoring systems. Without their participation, any national ALDFG strategy will remain incomplete.
Strengthen data and research: India still lacks reliable estimates on the quantity of fishing gear lost annually. Systematic monitoring is essential for policy planning, infrastructure design and accountability.
India’s ALDFG response remains at an early stage, but momentum is growing. State pollution control boards, non-profits, research institutions and private recyclers are beginning to acknowledge that fishing gear waste cannot be treated as ordinary plastic waste.
The challenge of ALDFG is environmental, economic, institutional and technological at the same time. Unless retrieval systems, recycling infrastructure and fisher participation evolve together, ghost gear will continue to accumulate silently beneath Indian waters.
Yet the emergence of initiatives by institutions such as the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, the HCL Foundation and the One Earth Foundation suggests that India is slowly beginning to recognise ALDFG not simply as marine waste, but as a resource management challenge within the blue economy transition.