Along the marshes of southeast Louisiana, the remains of a restaurant meal have found a second life in the water. Oyster shells that might once have been sent to landfill are being collected, cured and returned to the coast, where they can form the base of new reefs. For the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, the idea took on a more urgent purpose. Erosion had been eating into ancestral land and threatening an earthen mound that held deep cultural significance for the community. As reported by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), in 2019, hundreds of volunteers helped place about 200,000 pounds of recycled oyster shells along the shoreline, creating a reef about 400 feet long. The structure was intended to slow the loss of land rather than replace it.
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