The oysters eaten at this year's Oyster Festival in Oyster Bay are going home. The Town of Oyster Bay collected roughly 3,300 pounds of empty shells over the festival weekend, and its aquaculturists have trucked them to a curing facility where they will sit for several months before being placed back on the bay bottom.

Why empty shells matter

Young oysters and clams, called spat, need something hard to settle on, and an old shell is what they attach to in nature. When shells end up in a dumpster, that material leaves the water for good. Returning cured shells to the harbor rebuilds the bottom habitat that new shellfish grow on, which is the point of the Town's Shellfish Habitat Restoration Project in Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.

The curing facility is where the shells are prepared for reuse; after several months there, they re-enter the same waters the oysters came from.

Who did the collecting

The Town's Department of Environmental Resources ran the collection at the festival, with Supervisor Joseph Saladino, Councilwomen Laura Maier and Vicki Walsh and Receiver of Taxes Jeff Pravato joining the environmental team at the shell stations. Festival food vendors set shells aside instead of throwing them out.

The haul has varied with the crowd and the menu: about four tons came off the 2024 festival. Collection has become a standing part of the weekend each October.

Restaurants can join year round

The festival is the largest single collection, but the program does not stop there. The Town's Shell Recycling Partner Program takes shells from restaurants and other food businesses all year. Partners set aside eastern oyster and hard clam shells from daily service, and the Town collects them for the same curing and restoration process. The Town says the program also cuts the amount of waste a restaurant has to pay to have carted away.

A restaurant that wants to take part can sign up through the form on the Town's shell recycling page, which asks how many bushels of oyster and clam shells it expects each week.

How to get involved

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