Envirotreat Technologies Ltd was commissioned by Seddon Construction (on behalf of Castings Plc) to design and implement a remediation strategy to enable the construction of a warehouse extension within the existing manufacturing site at Brownhills, West Midlands. The made ground on the site was contaminated – the prime contaminants of concern were hydrocarbon and metallic pollutants – asbestos contamination had also been identified.
The proposed enabling works for the warehouse extension involved a significant ‘cut’ operation – this was primarily to facilitate the construction of an undercroft car park – the required net ‘cut’ was circa 8,000m3 – the surplus soils were required to be disposed of offsite.
Envirotreat designed and implemented a materials management strategy for the site in accordance with an agreed material management plan [MMP] under the Cl:aire Definition of Waste Code of Practice – the strategy was designed to ensure that only inert soils were disposed of offsite (at a suitable landfill repository).
Envirotreat carried out the necessary enabling and soil management works on the site which included an assessment of the soils in comparison with designated remediation target criteria [RTC]. The strategy incorporated a provision for the treatment of contaminated soils which were not compliant with the RTC. The enabling and soil management works were complicated by the need to maintain large volumes of materials on site to provide temporary support batters for the proposed undercroft car park construction – the piling works were undertaken in conjunction with the enabling works (piling works carried out by Van Elle) – Envirotreat provided a supporting capability for the piling works.
There was an additional requirement to remove a volume of soil (circa 600m3) associated with an area of the site blighted with Japanese Knotweed [JKW]. Envirotreat delineated the extent of JKW within this area resulting in less than 100m3 of non-hazardous soil being transported to the soil treatment facility (the Treatment Hub) – the remainder of the soil was classified as inert and disposed of at the same facility as the other inert soils.
The works were undertaken in accordance with the agreed MMP / Cl:aire Code of Practice and duly signed off by a Qualified Person.
Sladen Associates were the environmental consultants for the project.
The photograph shows the reuse of ‘site won’ materials
