IN the KEys, lobster traps are generally wood, and rot after a while. I’d actually just pull planks off of lost traps, and turn them into “lobster havens” they could enter and leave.
But in the Bahamas, they used rubber-dipped galvy steel mesh. Those suckers would last for DECADES, killing generation after generation of lobsters.
They might last for decades - but I tend to think that would be quite a stretch.
And remember. Lobster’s gotta have a good reason to go in there. And seeing his dead mother in law might not cut it!
(trap has no bait...)