Sustainable material reuse solutions for dredged sediments

The Yorkshire Business Unit of British Waterways (BW) was due to start dredging canals in the South Yorkshire (SY) region. Dredging is vital to maintain navigable waters and help ensure the long-term passage of freight and pleasure craft. The canals in SY had not been dredged for 10 years, which was beginning to impact the effectiveness of the waterways in this area. The most economic means of managing the dredged sediments was to place the material under a Paragraph 19 waste management licence exemption into a dredging deposit located at Long Sandall, Doncaster. However, the Long Sandall dredging site was nearing capacity containing 100,000m(3) of sediment, so it was proposed that this material could be excavated and reused as part of canal stabilisation works proposed several miles up canal at Whitley Lock. In order to reuse the existing sediment material in the lagoon under a Paragraph 19 waste management licence exemption, it had to be established that the sediments could be classified as non-hazardous. Following this, the sediment required an assessment in terms of its risk to human health and controlled waters to demonstrate its suitability for use in the canal bank stabilisation works. Ramboll carried out a detailed assessment and modelling exercise to help BW demonstrate the suitability of the sediments for reuse as construction fill. The work creates the infrastructure for BW to manage dredged sediments in a sustainable manner. This is vital in ensuring the future viability of the waterway and has saved BW's Yorkshire Business Unit potential disposal and material construction costs in the region 1,500,000 pound.