An excellent idea, avoid the high costs associated with landfill tax and you may even be able to re-use your soils on site, removing the costs of replacing the materials.
Soil recycling can be approached on-site or off-site, the basics principles are –
On-site- Based on SEPA’s (Scottish Environmental Agency) Land Remediation And Waste Management Guidelines, re-use of contaminated soils may be carried out without a waste management license if the excavated soils fit these 6 criteria.
If those doesn’t apply to your site then these may-
Soil remediation treatments including bioremediation, chemical oxidation etc. are all carried out to reduce contamination to ‘acceptable’ levels. Whilst this can be carried out to change the waste criteria and facilitating cheaper disposal, this can also be carried out to enable the soils to be re-used on site. A few regulatory hoops will need to be jumped through.
Off-site- Soil treatment centres, of which more and more are springing up around the UK, take soils and treat them to reduce contamination levels. Please note no landfill tax is levied! Soils recycled this way are often re-used by the treatment centre for their own purposes.
If you do have the time for treatment but not the space a temporary treatment centre can be set up. And yes this can be coordinated with several sites so that treatment costs can be shared.
There you have it, with so many options soil recycling may be right for your site. Feel free to ask us any questions below, or contact us directly!
2021
Soil remediation guide
Approaching soil remediation without any prior knowledge can be difficult and uncomfortable at times, especially when it can potentially be very costly. This free eBook will help you understand the whats, the whys and the hows of soil remediation in the simplest terms.