CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Gail Sutton holds on tight to a 22-pound bag of oyster shells as she walks through the halls of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. 

She helped create Sink Your Shucks, an oyster recycling program. 

“Which means that people have eaten an oyster, we collect the shell from restaurants and wholesalers,” Sutton said. 

Sutton is the associate director of the institute and was the first to recycle oysters in Texas a dozen years ago.

In that time they have collected more than 2 million pounds worth of shell. They are then sun-bleached in the hot Texas sun for at least six months. Then returned to the water, serving as a new home for future oysters. 

“And so far we’ve put in 28 acres of new oyster reef,” she said. 

The reefs are a perfect coastal environment for small fish and crab. But they serve a much bigger purpose. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. 

“They are kind of like the water treatment plant underwater,” Sutton said.

She said we tend to be destructive when we take oysters out of their habitat. 

“With fish and other animals we eat we don’t do that to them,” she said. “We’re not taking their homes. So by putting the shell back we’re putting that house back out there. And then other oysters can attach and start the cycle all over again.”

Water Street Oyster Bar in Corpus Christi is one of their partners. 

“And what’s really great is the public gets to participate,” Sutton said. “They eat their oyster, they recycle the shell and then come out and help us build new reefs.”

The reef also protects the shoreline from storms and coastal erosion.

“We put out over a million pounds of shell and three weeks later when Harvey hit dead on and the shell worked really well,” she said. “It did not wash away. The reef is still in place.”