Saturday, August 5 is National Oyster Day, and to celebrate, a slew of local restaurants are giving back to the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP).
Here’s how it works: restaurants that participate in ORP’s shell recycling program will donate 10 cents from every oyster you eat back to ORP. That means each oyster sale will allow ORP to plant 10 baby oysters onto sanctuary reefs in the Bay.
Recycled oyster shells are crucial to oyster recovery efforts in the Bay. Scientists raise oyster spat in a hatchery, then they plant the spat onto old shells, where they get a chance to grow into mature oysters. The hard, rocky reefs that serve as habitat for the oysters are hard to come by in the Bay today.
Right now, there are 24 participating restaurants in Maryland, seven in Virginia, and three in Washington, D.C. More restaurants are being added to the list. To see which ones, click here.
