In response to the proposal by Maria Damanaki to ban discards, Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said:
“We must end the practice of throwing away perfectly good fish by making sure that all the fish we catch are landed. The estimated discards for the North Sea alone range from 500,000 to 880,000 tonnes. And, according to Scotland's fishing minister, £40 million worth of fish a year are thrown away by Scottish fishermen alone. But it is also crucial that a discard ban is not met by giving in to demands for higher quotas. We need to use more effective fishing gear as well as agreeing genuinely sustainable levels of fishing.”
