Scottish metal reprocessing, tubular supply and decommissioning company John Lawrie Group has joined forces with Shetland Amenity Trust to help maintain the environment on the islands.
The Aberdeen-headquartered company, which earlier this year established a metal recycling facility at Rova Head, Lerwick, is working with the trust to resume the uplift of all makes of end of life vehicles on the isles.
For the past 30 years Shetland Amenity Trust has offered a collection service for end of life vehicles and agricultural machinery, helping improve the local landscape. Legislation introduced over a decade ago placed the responsibility for recycling vehicles that had reached the end of their working life on the vehicle’s manufacturer. They then contract national service providers to fulfil that obligation, a process that the trust has helped coordinate in Shetland.
In recent years, only certain makes of vehicle accepted by one service provider have been collected on the isles – something that Shetland Amenity Trust lobbied to change. The partnership between John Lawrie Group and Shetland Amenity Trust remedies this situation, allowing all makes of vehicles to be uplifted and treated at the Lerwick site before being transferred to the UK mainland.
It comes after John Lawrie Group made significant investments in new equipment and improving the infrastructure of its Rova Head facility, which had previously been run by another firm. This led to John Lawrie Group forming agreements with a number of local and national agencies, including Car Take Back and Autogreen, which deliver end of life vehicle obligations on behalf of manufacturers.
Established in 1983, Shetland Amenity Trust works to maintain and improve facilities and the environment on the isles. It aims to preserve and enhance everything that is distinctive about Shetland’s cultural and natural heritage, managing a number of environmental enhancement and recycling projects to help achieve this.
Sita Goudie, environmental improvement project officer with Shetland Amenity Trust, said: “Since 1988, our environmental improvement service has removed over 20,000 tonnes of scrap from Shetland’s countryside. This service has also been successful in cleaning and closing illegal dumps and working with the local authority to clear abandoned vehicles.
“Shetland now has significantly less redundant vehicles and machinery rusting into the ground and has all but stopped the disposal of these items over the cliffs and in illegal dumps. It has been frustrating that over the past two years we have been unable to uplift all makes of vehicles, but we are very happy to be working with John Lawrie Group to reinstate this.”
Rova Head in Lerwick is one of four metal processing facilities that John Lawrie Group operates across Scotland, the others being located at Aberdeen, Montrose and Evanton near Inverness. In addition, the firm provides decommissioning services to the oil and gas industry and supplies new and used steel tubulars for use in the construction sector.
Ray Grant, John Lawrie Group environmental director, said: “Since taking on the site at Rova Head we have made significant investment to enable us to undertake a range of work required by both the local and offshore industries, as well as the local community. We were aware that there had been an issue with end of life vehicles on the islands for a while and are pleased to have reached agreements which enable us to accept all makes.
“Shetland Amenity Trust has provided an excellent uplift service in the islands for decades, making them the perfect partner to provide a vehicle collection service. We look forward to working with this local environmental trust on this and other environmental projects.”
For further information on the vehicle uplift service operated on the Shetland Isles, visit www.shetlandamenity.org/environmental-improvement.
