Hockey sticks are helping save the environment during Florida’s water crisis.

Researches with the Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) are using broken hockey sticks to build marine ecosystems that resemble natural coral reefs.

Rink2Reef has already made 45 artificial reefs from the sticks to help restore oyster habitats. The reefs can each hold around 400 oysters.

Hockey sticks don’t break down easily, so recycling them is better than just throwing them away. And the artificial reefs help filter water, around 20,000 gallons a day when they are fully functional.

“What we’ve done is we’ve taken these broken hockey sticks and we’ve repurposed them, built these simple link-and-log structures,” Bob Wasno, resource coordinator at FGCU’s Vester Marine and Environmental Sciences Research Field Station, told WINK. “And with these link-and-log structures tethered on our local docks, oysters are able to grow all over this vast area.”

The program has been picking up steam and there’s talks of the NHL wanting to join the effort, according to reports.

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