Piers and landing structures are the important facilities for access to marine transportation of Hong Kong. In 2018, we maintain 127km of seawall and breakwater and 318 piers and landing steps including public piers, as well as franchised and licensed ferry piers. Traditional design of these structures adopted the use of timber fenders to protect the structures as well as vessels against impact forces from berthing and mooring operations. Timber fenders are however made of hardwood, many of which are not produced from sustainable sources and their continued use is considered less environmentally friendly nowadays. In order to minimize the use of hardwood in our maintenance works, we have studied the use of alternative materials such as rubber and recycled plastic. In 2000, trial installation of these alternative materials were carried out at selected piers and seawall landing structures. The overall performance of these alternative materials was good. We therefore have been minimizing the use of new timber fenders and progressing to upgrade with rubber recycled plastic fenders when replacement is necessary. For aged pier strcutures requiring reconstruction, we will also adopt these alternative materials to construct the fender system.
