Middle school students in Effingham County, Ga., recently spent an afternoon building flower beds. The wood used for the beds was illegally sourced from Brazil and seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, WTOC reported.
The wood was ipé, also known as Brazilian walnut, and was part of a 100-ton illegal lumber bust made at a U.S. port. Typically, after the high-quality lumber acquired in such a bust is processed by the courts, it cannot be sold and must instead be given out to a non-profit. In this case, that non-profit was Effingham County schools.
“It is very dense; it grows very slow. It’s bug-resistant, fire-resistant and so it makes for a long-lasting wood for us to make these boxes because it will last a long time,” Monica Harris of the Savannah Coastal Refuge Complex told WTOC.
The wood will be used to build additional planter boxes at schools across the Effingham County area.
