Uist Asco are named after Ascophyllum Nodosum, the seaweed
which they process and dry using heat from their 999kW Binder
woodchip boiler. The dried seaweed is sold as
organic fertiliser, animal feed, alginate, and for
further refining into chemical products.
Trees are in short supply in the Outer Hebrides, but
the MacIain family, who have developed the drying plant,
have 720 hectares of coniferous plantation on North Uist.
It's this timber, which has no competing markets on the
island, which provides the sustainable source of fuel for the
wood-As well as creating jobs in the management and
harvesting of the trees, and in the drying plant, the project
will create and sustain around 15 jobs in the traditional
seaweed harvesting industry.
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