Feature, Freight News, Sea

Not brown but green

[ September 22, 2020   //   Chris ]

It may not look very ‘green’ but this is the start of a scheme by the builders of the new Tilbury2 port to move thousands of tons of waste ash from the construction site to a new home a short distance down the river at the appropriately named Mucking landfill to recreate rare habitats for a number of insects and other invertebrates. Forth Ports says that the recreation of brownfield habitats is novel and rarely attempted, but its team has previous experience of when they developed a new invertebrate habitat as part of the development of land on the edge of Tilbury for the London Distribution Park.

There have been 15 barge movements of around 14,500 tonnes of fly ash so far.

Specialist surveys found that these areas, as unsightly as they might seem, were exceptionally important for insects and other invertebrates, as well as unusual plants and lichens. As part of the Development Consent Order (DCO) for the construction of Tilbury2, the port committed to translocating the material that formed the basis of these unusual habitats to a new site where it would be allowed to redevelop, recolonise and expand in a more secure location. An agreement has been reached with Enovert South Limited, to use land at their Mucking landfill for this purpose, as part of that site’s final restoration.

Tags: Tilbury; Forth Ports