Eastfield Garden Centre in Bridlington have made a £600,000 investment to become one of the greenest garden centres in the UK.

The company have become virtually carbon zero-rated after installing a biomass boiler and two wind turbines to meet their hot water, heating and electricity needs.

The biomass boiler is burning rape straw from an adjacent farm and has reduced Eastfield’s heating costs by about 75%. The garden centre previously used about 40,000 litres of oil a year to heat over 2,000 square metres of retail and office space at the centre.

Eastfield's Brian Stephenson said: “Instead of burning oil we are now using about 200 tonnes of rape straw a year. This is a waste product from the oil seed rape crop and would otherwise have been ploughed back into the land.

“Burning rape straw rather than oil is considered to be more environmentally friendly because it only releases the same amount of carbon dioxide that the straw absorbed in the first place, so biomass is counted as a low or zero net carbon fuel."

The wind turbines are producing an average of 350,000 kilowatts of electricity per year to meet the needs of the garden centre, with any over capacity being sold back to the grid. 

“When you take into account the electricity we sell back to the grid, produced from a renewable source, this makes us virtually zero carbon rated for electricity as well,” said Brian.

Pictured: Brian Stephenson of Eastfield Garden Centre is pictured with a rape straw bale ready to go into the new biomass boiler.