Martin Ecosystems

Baton Rouge, LA

225.292.6750

biohaven floating islands

Our Floating Islands are Featured at the NEW Louisiana Children’s Museum

This year the Louisiana Children’s Museum is making a move to City Park from the Warehouse District, where it has spent the last 30 years. This move has been in the works for a long time and you can see rendered drawings here in an article published last year that describes the new museum in detail.

The new location will overlook a lagoon in City Park where you will be able to see three of Martin Ecosystems’ BioHaven® Floating Islands that were recently installed with help from the staff of the Children’s Museum, Resource Environmental Solutions (RES) and volunteers! We’re honored and excited to be a part of this project to bring learning to life for children.

Taylor Beery, the museum board’s president said,

The ability to take the children outside and to let them see through the windows the nature we’re teaching them is an extraordinary opportunity for the museum.

Our BioHaven® Floating Islands were installed for this project to provide a habitat for wildlife and water fowl living in and around the waterbody. Floating Islands are floating platforms constructed from recycled PET plastic matrix. Vegetation is grown hydroponically to create a picturesque waterscape for lakes and ponds above the water, while the roots are working hard below to remove unwanted pollutants below the water.Thanks to the work these islands are doing, soon you and your children will be able to enjoy the beautiful waterscape and admire the turtles, fish and birds that make their home near the museum.

RES is the largest and most experienced ecological offset provider in the United States. They’re committed to being stewards for sustainable development and bettering the places we live and work. They created a video that provides more insight into this project at the Louisiana Children’s Museum. It features our Floating Islands and a few words from our own Jason Martin! You can find the video here.

To learn more about the applications of BioHaven® Floating Islands, click here or give us a call at 225.292.6750.

Floating Island Technology: How We Use Recycled Consumer Waste to Create Sustainable Environmental Solutions


We use recycled plastic to protect shorelines, improve water quality and create wildlife habitat through our Floating Island Technology. How are we doing this? It starts with the Matrix.

Matrix-The Foundation of our Products
Matrix is the Foundation of our products. It is made from 100% recycled PET plastic drinking bottles  and the matrix fibers are thermal bonded with water based resins. It has a strong tensile and tear strength.

The matrix is an open cell structure making it ideal for biofilm attachment and sediment accumulation. It has approximately 124 square feet per cubic foot of surface area. It has also been tested by an independent lab and is non-toxic to fish.

Our Commitment to Environmental Safety
We are committed to providing the safest products. PET used in the matrix material is resistant to attack by micro-organisms. It is inert, won’t biologically degrade and will not leach, which is why it is widely preferred for packaging foods.

PET is also inherently more UV resistant than other plastics, like polypropylene, because of its molecular structure.

At Martin Ecosystems, we’ve gone a step further by coating our products with polyurea coating. The particular polyurea that we use is perfect for marine environments because it is inert, it will not hydrolyze, leach or contaminate. It provides UV protection, contains no VOCs and is direct food contact approved.

How Floating Island Technology Can Improve Our Environment:

  • Protect shorelines of lakes, ponds, and wetlands.
  • Create new marsh habitat where wetlands are eroding away.
  • Remove unwanted pollutants such as Total Suspended Solids, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), fecal coliforms, nitrogen and phosphorus in stormwater and wastewater ponds.
  • Create habitat for wildlife, water fowl, and fisheries.
  • Create picturesque waterscapes.

Shoreline Protection

Research has shown that Floating Breakwaters are most effective at attenuating short period waves, such as wind chop.

Marsh Creation

With so much wetland erosion taking place today, wildlife and water fowl are losing their native habitats. By strategically installing Floating Breakwaters, we can create new marsh habitat.

Water Treatment

Floating Treatment Wetlands provide a foundation for plants to grow hydroponically. The open and porous matrix allows roots to spread and bacteria and microbes to attach. Microbes and bacteria attach to the plant roots and matrix fibers, creating a sticky biofilm. Total Suspended Solids are trapped in the biofilm or settle to the water bottom. Bacteria and microbes digest organic matter and pollutants such as Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Fecal Coliform, Nitrogen and Phosphorus.

Floating Treatment Wetlands are beneficial to rural and small towns still operating lagoon systems because they can be retrofit into existing lagoons, ultimately saving towns from having to spend millions in capital and construction costs.

They require very little maintenance. Vegetation should be trimmed 2-3 times a year.

Habitat Creation

Fish congregate beneath Islands for shade and cover. Birds lay their eggs on Islands away from predators on land near by.

 

Beautify Waterscapes

Our Floating Islands beautify waterscapes.

The Chicago Riverwalk Restoration is a great example of how to incorporate Floating Islands into a waterscape for beautification.

For every square foot of matrix that we use to manufacture our products we are recycling 3 (16 oz) bottles. This prevents thousands of plastic water bottles from trashing our environment and entering our landfills.

Improving our Environment One Product at a Time: BioHaven® Floating Islands

After installation, our BioHaven® Floating Islands immediately begin working to simulate nature and provide a habitat.

But, with our environmental technology, there is more than what meets the eye. While our BioHaven® Floating Islands are beautiful to look at, it’s what’s happening beneath the surface that sets us apart.

These Floating Islands are intentionally manufactured to be eco-friendly and they comprise four components:

  1. Matrix
  2. Foam for Buoyancy
  3. Vegetation
  4. Planting Medium

These four elements combine to create a dynamic and intricate process.

As the aquatic vegetation grows hydroponically, plant roots permeate the matrix area and beyond, growing into the water column. Through a process called Phytoremediation, the rooted plants eliminate and consume unwanted nutrients from the water as a food source.

The surface area of the Floating Islands is ideal for Biofilm growth, which is a sticky mixture of bacteria, fungus and algae). Within the biofilm, microbes break down harmful water pollutants such as nitrates and phosphorous, through a process called Bioremediation.

Why Choose BioHaven® Floating Islands?

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Vegetation grows much faster with this environmental technology because the trapped nutrients act as a fertilizer for the aquatic plants and biofilm.

The BioHaven® Floating Islands are excellent for treating nutrient-loaded waters due to the purpose of their design: to filter sediment, pollutants, nutrients and organics. They also provide a perfect surface area for natural, biochemical processes to occur.

At Martin Ecosystems, we use science, patented technology and nature to improve the environment.

If you’re looking to improve your water quality, reduce erosion, create a new habitat or restore a lost one, give us a call at 225-292-6750.

Martin Ecosystems: Who We Are

Shorelines. River banks. Marsh. Wetlands. Waterscapes. Ponds. Lakes. Vegetation.

These aspects of nature are usually noticed, but not often given deeper thought. Perhaps you see and appreciate waterscapes, but don’t find yourself wondering how they were created, how they are maintained, or what exactly is going on below the surface.

This is where we come in.

In 2008, Ted Martin founded Martin Ecosystems, LLC, and it has been family-owned and operated ever since.

Ted was raised in a small fishing village surrounded by water, so this love for water began at a young age. His love and appreciation quickly grew into a passion to protect and preserve.

As a team and family, we share his passion as well. We have a strong commitment to improve and protect the environment we live in.

Here are just a few of the many environmental challenges that exist today:

  • Poor water quality
  • Coastal land loss
  • Marsh erosion
  • Threatened habitats
  • Consumer pollution
  • Impaired water bodies

At Martin Ecosystems, our mission is to provide environmental solutions by manufacturing innovative technologies that reduce erosion, improve water quality and beautify waterscapes.

Our family has experienced coastal land loss for decades, so we recognize the problem and have spent nearly 10 years creating a way to be a part of the solution.

We are an environmental technology company that manufactures products that provide cost-effective solutions for a variety of environmental challenges including: Stormwater and Waste Water Treatment, Shoreline Protection, and Habitat Restoration.

We currently manufacture:

In the engineering of our products, we believe it is our responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth’s resources – this is what makes us different from other companies.

By using a matrix material made of 100% recycled Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic soda and water bottles to manufacture our products, we are:

  1. Reducing the amount of plastic from entering landfills
  2. Reusing post-consumer waste

Please contact us to learn more about our company, product lines and services. We would love to hear from you!