Sand martins in quarry

Dozens of sand martin families have given their seal of approval to Lafarge’s unique, eco-friendly, sand alternative made from recycled glass.

The birds, which as their name suggests, like to nest in sand banks, have colonised an envirosand pile at Lafarge Aggregates & Concrete UK’s Willington site near Bedford. It is the first time at any of Lafarge’s 40 plus aggregates sites that the birds have adopted the envirosand as a suitable nesting site.

Simon Bryant, site manager at Willington, said: “Martins are renowned for nesting in stockpiles of natural sand but we’ve never before encountered them in our recycled products.

“The martins like the sort of material which is soft enough to dig in but hard enough to remain stable. Although Envirosand satisfies these criteria we didn’t think it would be quite their cup of tea but it seems about 60 pairs decided to move in. It has been quite a surprise.”

The martins’ nesting areas are protected by law which means the envirosand stockpile is now out of bounds until the chicks have hatched and the families have flown.

It means a few weeks of inconvenience for the site but Simon is stoical, saying: “Where you have sand you will get sand martins. We are used to it here at Willington, although obviously the birds using the envirosand this year has thrown us a bit of a curve ball.

“I guess it shows just how like the real stuff our envirosand is. We’re just glad the martins are happy and healthy and are impressed they’ve picked the green option.”