Oyster Recovery Partnership

We believe our job is about people, and that everyone benefits from a healthy Chesapeake Bay.

We believe that poor water quality and declining habitats can be reversed.

We believe oysters are the answer.

The Oyster Recovery Partnership is the nation’s leading nonprofit dedicated to the large-scale restoration of oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay, and has planted more than 6.7 billion oysters on over 2,400 acres of oyster habitat in Maryland since 1993. The organization also manages the Shell Recycling Alliance, a network of nearly 370 member seafood businesses and 70 public shell drop off sites throughout Maryland, D.C. and Northern Virginia reclaiming shell for oyster restoration efforts. Since the Alliance’s launch in 2010, ORP has recycled nearly 135,000 bushels, which equates to 4,700 tons of shell kept out of area landfills, and enough substrate to support the planting of up to 675 million oysters in local waters.