An AI-generated representative image showing how shell-filled wire baskets line the shallow marsh shoreline in Garden City, South Carolina, as part of a living-reef project using recycled oyster shells. Credits – Chat GPT
In 2024, the county put up about 200 of the baskets along Atlantic Avenue in Garden City as part of a larger effort to use recycled material to fight marsh erosion rather than importing stone or concrete.
The idea uses oyster shells left from restaurants and backyard gatherings around the county that would otherwise go to a landfill, according to Horry County. Living shorelines, made with natural materials such as oyster shell, tend to be cheaper to construct and maintain than rigid structures, and they improve water quality and support far more marine species in the process, according to NOAA Fisheries. When cured, the shells are stacked into wire cages called constructed wire reefs and lowered into the marsh, where they produce a solid textured surface for new oyster larvae to settle on. In the years since, county personnel have added further baskets to the reef, built with support from local high school students and others. An AI-generated representative image showing how county workers and volunteers fill wire baskets with recycled oyster shells before placing them in the tidal marsh as part of Horry County’s living-reef project. Credits – Google Gemini Traditional shoreline defences such as bulkheads and seawalls establish a hard, immovable barrier between land and water but can also exacerbate erosion nearby and offer nothing in the way of habitat for fish, crabs or birds. A seawall is built to a set height and stays there. A living coastline, however, can change and expand over time. It can slowly increase in height as sediment builds up. For a stretch of coastline like Garden City, where the marsh behind Atlantic Avenue depends on a stable edge to survive, that adaptability could prove just as valuable as the erosion control itself, and Horry County has already signalled plans to keep expanding the reef in the years ahead, one recycled shell at a time.
