Up to 1,500 tonnes of debris is recovered each year from the freshwater bay and local river banks by the Authority’s environment staff. The cost of transporting and landfilling this material has been estimated to be about 60,000.
But the Authority has now approved a scheme to provide one of its new buildings, near Queen Alexandra Dock, with a heating system that will use this salvaged wood as a fuel. Around 70% of the material drawn from water in the Cardiff Bay area comprises whole tree trunks, branches, twigs and leaves. This is to be separated from other debris, sorted and reduced to small chips by the Authority for use in its bio-fuel boiler.
Commenting on the project, councillor Marion Drake, Cardiff cabinet member for enterprise, said: “This is an innovative scheme which could result in considerable savings by disposing of this debris in an environmentally-friendly way, using the energy generated to heat a suitable building and provide hot water at low cost.”
The Harbour Authority sees the use of a bio-mass boiler as the best environmental solution, since carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere resulting from the burning of the wood are the same as the amount of the gas that was absorbed by the wood when it was originally growing.
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