The Easiest Way to Recycle Your Fishing Line

Early June marks World Environment Day and July, for those accepting the challenge is Plastic Free Month. With this in mind, we, here at Angling Direct thought we would remind anglers about the Anglers’ National Line Recycling Scheme (ANLRS), so all us anglers, together can help leave behind a good, clean environment after every fishing session.

Why Recycling Fishing Line?

When it comes to the environment and the water’s edge, anglers are not the only users. Incorrectly discarding of fishing line can become problematic for boaters, beach visitors and the wildlife that lives there. In addition to being an inconvenience, we gathered some facts about fishing line pollution.

400 million metres is the number of the discarded line if 1 million UK anglers re-spools just two reels each a year with just 400metres of monofilament. That is enough to get to the moon! It takes 600 years for heavy monofilament fishing line to break down in landfill.

Adding to the mountains of toxic waste that will take many lifetimes to degrade in a landfill, with the inevitable pollution of streams, rivers, and oceans that results from toxic breakdown, or incineration, with the air pollution that results, even with the most stringent processes in place; until now, these have been the only options for disposing of used fishing line.

By recycling your fishing line you are reducing pollution, leaving one less hazard for wildlife, and improving the image and reputation of angling. Almost all anglers care about the wider environment, as healthy wildlife and clean surroundings lead to good fishing. As such, we, here at Angling Direct know that recycling matters to you and we also know that you’re all busy with work, family, and many other commitments. 

Recycling fishing line is something the whole of the angling community can agree on, with over 85% of anglers surveyed saying they would be keen to recycle their used fishing line if facilities were available. The good news is that facilities are available at Angling Direct stores, and recycling your fishing line is easy so, doing the right thing has become effortless.

What types of fishing line can you recycle?

Before we get to the how, we just need to cover the what. Many of the fishing lines anglers use can be recycled and melted down into plastic pellets or can be remanufactured back into items for fishing like spools. When it comes to recycling your old fishing line, the most eco-friendly and recyclable line is single filament nylon products such as monofilament or fluorocarbon.

Monofilament lines are made from strong, single stand plastic lines and are fairly common amongst angler and fluorocarbon is a single strand of polyvinylidene fluoride. Both lines, no matter the colouring can be recycled but if put in a general rubbish bin, they will go to landfill. If these types of lines go to landfill they will not break down over time, becoming huge issues for birds and wildlife that get tired up in them.

Unfortunately, braided lines are harder to recycle. An option for anglers looking to correctly dispose of braid fishing lines is to cut it up into small lengths before discarding it so that if wildlife rummaged in your rubbish, there will not be tangled in nasty webs of line. Also, remember to remove all hooks and terminal tackle before discarding.

If you wish to start using more recyclable options of braid and monofilament, check out items such as Fox Exocet Braid or Daiwa’s Mono.

How to recycle fishing line

Now you know whether or not your line type can be recycled, you need to know that making sure you do not leave your old line on the bank is not enough. Neither is popping the discarded line in your bin at home, even your recycling bin. To make sure our anglers old fishing lines are discarded in an eco-friendly manner, Angling Direct has made it really easy so you do not need to call around, researching your local collection station. Instead, just pop into one of our nationwide stores.

With a dedicated line recycling bin in every single one of our stores across the country, recycling your lines, both monofilament and braid, couldn’t be simpler! Save up all that old line, remove your lures and hooks if you can and then drop your line into the red recycling bin at your local Angling Direct store, and we’ll do the rest!

If you don’t plan to make a trip to one of our stores with recycling bins anytime soon, then every time you have discarded line from changing a spool, save it! It is good to practise to pick up an old coffee can or container to pop in your unwanted line, ready for dropping it in our red bins on your next visit, whenever it may be.

As an incentive, we, here at Team AD are always looking at ways to reward you for being a responsible angler, with in-store services and discounts being considered for anglers who recycle their line through us!

The Line Recycling Success so far…

With over 30  recycling bins already placed in tackle shops and fishing venues around the country by LISA (Local Independent Sea Anglers) and the ANLRS is off to a strong start; we look forward to hearing good things about this initiative, and the organisation that started it, for many years to come.

As we already have dedicated van runs from our central site out across our retail network, we’ll be including collections of recycled lines on these runs, posting all the line recycled through our stores direct, so there’s no additional traffic, no increased carbon footprint, and no further vehicle emissions involved in helping to make ANLRS the angling status quo it should be.

In a box from August 2019 that we sent to the Anglers National Line Recycling Scheme there was a total 116,000m of line! That has taken our total amount of line sent in the last 6 weeks to 179,000m worth of line! Please keep this amazing recycling going through the river season!

An additional bonus is that any money that is made through the ANLRS scheme is invested in projects that benefit anglers, to promote angling, and support the environment, making line recycling a win-win situation for everyone.

For more eco-friendly fishing tips, check out our guide on World Environment Day 2020! For more recycling line queries, be sure to contact your local store or message the AD Facebook. We will, of course, keep you all updated on our recycling progress via our social media.

Happy Recycling!