Turn on a light in your home and imagine it is powered by an old, ripped fishing net.

Hard to imagine?

How about a broken lobster trap? Or a buoy that can no longer float?

Stop imaging. It's really happening.

Through a program called Fishing for Energy, the gear is collected in Gloucester and Rockport and trucked to Covanta's Waste-to-Energy facility in Haverhill, where most of it — and other trash— is converted to energy while metal is collected and recycled.

It's a way to clear the deck, so to speak, for commercial fishermen looking for a cost-free method of disposing of old, unused fishing gear, as well as derelict gear that can pose a threat to marine life.

Read the full story at Gloucester Times>>