East Lyme, CT, Shifts to Recycled Composite for Upcoming Boardwalk

Rainforest Relief has learned that on April 3, East Lyme voted to switch to a wood/plastic composite decking product, putting an end to the proposed use of tropical ipÍ for boardwalk of the upcoming Niantic Bay Overlook project.

Rainforest Relief, after learning late in the process of East Lymeís bids for tropical hardwoods, began to engage the town in November of 2002. After contacting the townís Director of Planning, Meg Parulis and letting her know that we intended to come to town to campaign, we put her in touch with Polywood, a recycled plastic lumber manufacturer. We also made contact with a number of local East Lyme organizations that had been involved in supporting the waterfront redevelopment project.

While East Lyme decided not to use the more durable and structural Polywood, they did decide to go with a plastic and wood composite product called Weather Best, necessitating a redesign that reduced the proposed load on the walkway. Rainforest Relief doesnít promote the use of plastic-and-wood composites simply because they donít last as long as all-recycled-plastic products. Many of them also stain and warp. Thereís even one thatís made with a type of plastic that can fail at very low temperatures.

But the use of the composite is a huge victory for the Amazon rainforests, which will be spared the logging that would have been necessary to provide the proposed ipÍ for the boardwalk.

Send a message to East Lyme, thanking them for taking the destruction of rainforests seriously, and switching to a composite product. Suggest they use a less-expensive all-plastic product that will last far longer than the composite, thus reducing the need to buy more in the future and reducing the cost of future renovations.