Falmouth Oyster Festival will be embracing sustainability this year, with a new initiative to return the empty oyster shells to the oyster beds around the River Fal.

Permission has been given by Truro Harbour Master, who administers the Truro Oyster Fishery, to recycle the empty oyster shells back to the river, the shells will form the culch' or base on which the young oysters will grow. Visitors to the festival from October 18-23 will be asked to put the empty shells in recycling bins at the festival to enable this initiative to be a success.

It is entirely appropriate that the oyster shells are recycled back to the oyster beds. Falmouth Oyster Festival celebrates the traditional methods of dredging for oysters and the conservation practices used by the fishermen. Ancient laws govern the oyster fishery today to protect the natural ecology of the riverbeds and oyster stocks, oystermen fishing in the Port of Truro Oyster Fishery are prohibited from using engines. Instead, sail power and hand-pulled dredges must be used.

New sponsors to the festival for 2007, the Cornish Sea Salt Company launched their new product at the London Speciality and Fine Food Fair last month. The company produce a white culinary sea salt that is hand-harvested from the clear turquoise waters off Cornwall's Lizard Peninsula: the salt is a purer, healthier and tastier alternative to traditional table salt. The company's innovative and natural production process works with nature, producing salt crystals of great purity that melt in the mouth and add real flavour intensity to every dish.

"The opportunity to build a sea salt harvesting plant right on the edge of the ocean, in an area of outstanding geological importance, is a unique one that's been three years in the planning" says Tony Fraser, managing director.

"We believe we are offering something really different to the market with a sea salt that retains more than sixty naturally occurring trace elements essential for well being and produced using a completely natural, energy efficient and environmentally aware process - straight from the ocean," he added.

Shells will also be used in an alternative way at the festival - there will be a scallop shell painting competition for children, on each day of the festival, following the addition of this extremely popular junior craft activity last year.