Enviroscreen Mitigates Risk of High Costs Associated With Presence of Heavy Metals Russell Drive - Contaminated Soils

A Japanese knotweed infestation in the middle of a development footprint is far from ideal for a housing developer – particularly one in which the soils of the contaminated area contain heavy metals – a costly landfill tax nightmare. These pains were easily solved for the client through Ebsford’s expertise and knowledge, and a solution that was tailored to the perils of the site and to the client’s needs.

The excavation of Japanese knotweed contaminated material is a solution that removes the issue in its entirety – one traditional method is to simply dispose of this material at landfill, however this is not only an environmentally irresponsible solution, but would also have incurred huge costs to the client due to the classification of the soils. Following analysis of the site, Ebsford utilised bespoke screening technology in order to process the excavated material. The system processes Japanese knotweed rhizomes through a mechanical soil separation unit; the material passes down conveyers before being passed through the screener and split into three fractions - oversized, mid-sized and fines; it is then manually picked to further remove rhizomes.

The fines material generated from the screening process was subsequently buried in line with best practice with sufficient cover; Ebsford allowed the client to not only remove the issue of the infestation completely, but also mitigate the potentially costly factor of the presence of heavy metals in the soils.