Recycling heap in South Carolina. Photo: huggingthecoast, Flickr.

Coastal conservationists say the first South Carolinians had the right idea when they flung the remnants of their oyster feasts back into the ocean.

"Native people didn't put their oysters in a cooler and head down the road for a party," says Joy Brown, marine restoration specialist for the South Carolina Nature Conservancy. "They put their oysters right back in the water."

The Nature Conservancy is now trying to replicate the Cusabo's recycling habits, which they credit with sustaining the state's oyster crop, filtering its waters and preventing shoreline erosion. The advocacy organization is partnering with the Department of Natural Resources on a pilot program to collect emptied oyster shells from Charleston-area restaurants and return them to the sea.

"A lot of times, these shells are going into landfills," Brown says. "But they can serve a better purpose."

The salvaged shells will be used to build oyster reefs, which are essentially shelters for vulnerable microscopic baby oysters.

"When oysters get ready to fall out of the water column, if they fall in the mud, they suffocate and die," Brown explains. "We're creating interstitial spaces for these babies to fall into."

Conservationists think reefs could play a crucial role in rebuilding the oyster population, which has fallen off from historic levels by 85 percent. Brown and other researchers blame the crisis on road-crazed builders, who plumbed South Carolina's marshes more than a century ago for concrete-bound oyster shells.

"They were kicking out tons of oysters," Brown says.

South Carolina has recently been importing oyster shells from Texas and North Carolina to seed its reefs, but that's proven to be an expensive habit in tough economic times. Yet if Brown's calculations are correct, the 18 restaurants expected to participate in the pilot program will be able to provide 60 percent of the shells the state needs.

The trick, Brown says, is persuading restaurants to keep dedicated oyster buckets in their kitchens. "People think about oyster shells in their garbage cans and they get a little nervous," Brown says. "You don't want there to be a smell."

If this season's program goes as planned, Brown vows, there won't be any strange odors -- but there will be another South Carolina oyster harvest.