East Lyme, Connecticut

April 3, 2003

	The Niantic Bay Overlook boardwalk.

East Lyme, CT, Switches to Wood-Plastic 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 ipê for the boardwalk of the upcoming Niantic Bay Overlook project.

The project was conceived and moved forward by the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation. Rainforest Relief, after learning late in the process of East Lyme's bids for tropical hardwoods, began to engage the town in November of 2002. After contacting the town's 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 doesn't promote the use of plastic-wood composites simply because they don't last as long as all-recycled-plastic products. Many of them also stain and warp.

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 ipê for the boardwalk.

Please help us keep the victories coming by donating to Rainforest Relief today.