Peat Cutting Shetland

This video is a departure from our usual content. It shows Alan "castin' paets" for our solid fuel heating, cooking and hot water, we also burn waste pallets and home grown wood. The method is many hundreds of years old but there is evidence of using peat for fuel in Shetland from about 4000 years ago. We are aware that this is a source of CO2 for the atmosphere, overall the peat in Shetland is degraded and is releasing CO2. We use the traditional method where the turf cut (Flayed) from the top (Back o da Bank) is laid down on the previous years cut at the bottom (The Greff), this allows the vegetation to continue growing and theoretically capture carbon but it will take a few thousand years to restore what has been lost. The tool used for cutting(castin') is called a Tushkar.