Boardwalk made of recycled plastic for a nature reserve in Shetland 
(30/06/2008)
Hermaness National Nature Reserve is located on Unst, Shetland - the most northerly part of the British Isles. The NNR is home to literally thousands of pairs of breeding birds including bonxies or great skuas and also provides a habitat for red throated divers, snipe, dunlin, golden plover and arctic skua. The reserve contains areas of blanket bog, an increasingly threatened habitat globally.
Unfortunately the impact of foot traffic on the reserve has caused a certain amount of erosion to the paths that allow visitors to access the site. The bog surface is fragile and highly susceptible to trampling with damage to the path in some places up to 4m wide. Also the dryer areas of the path are starting to get wider and produce well defined erosion scars.
In response to this growing problem, Scottish Natural Heritage commissioned Upland Contracts Ltd to construct a walkway across the reserve, with a clear aim - to enhance and protect this extraordinary habitat. Recycled plastics specialist Fusion Marine is working on a project with Upland Contracts to supply and install a boardwalk made of recycled plastic for a nature reserve in Shetland.
Working closely with Oban-based Fusion Marine who are supplying the materials, over 5,000 decking boards and 1500 rails are being used in the construction of the boardwalk across the delicate bog surface.
Using recycled plastic is considered to be a highly sustainable solution for this project, not only does prefabricating off site minimise disturbance and damage to the site during works, but there is no chance that the delicate ph of the bog is affected by importing aggregate materials.
All the fixings used in the project are stainless steel and this coupled with the versatile Hahn product supplied by Fusion Marine will ensure that the boardwalk has a very long service life.
Boyd Henderson off Upland Contracts said: "This contract has been an excellent example of how a supplier's ongoing input into a project can greatly increase the efficiency of site work and the end product. To that end Fusion Marine and Upland Contracts shall continue to work closely together on this project through to completion."
Related categories: Plastic recycling Wildlife protection
