Depur Systems Ltd continue with their objective to provide a market need for quality depuration and re-circulation systems.

 

The term shellfish can apply to numerous types of animals from squid to crabs and mussels etc. For our purposes shellfish will generally refer to bivalve molluscs i.e. mussels, oysters, clams, cockles and scallops (the class of animals in the phylum mollusc that have two shells).

 

All bi-valves are filter feeders, they filter out food (small particles and plankton) from the water in which they live. It is a relatively non-selective process where both food and bad are taken into the digestive tract where the suitable food particles are digested and the unsuitable voided as faeces.

 

Main bacterial risks come from sewage (human and animal) contamination of inshore waters and it is the risk of food poisoning that determines the requirement from purification (depuration). Depuration is a controlled purification process used to purge bi-valve molluscs of bacteria and viruses (providing the level of contamination is relatively low).

 

The level of contamination is determined by EC directive that all harvesting areas are designated and categorized as either A, B, or C depending on the level of contamination in the area.