Lorries carry Dounreay away every 20 minutes

March 11, 2009

Lorries carry the spoil from the site of a major new waste treatment plant

Lorries laden with spoil are leaving Dounreay every 20 minutes as the site gears up for the next big phase of its decommissioning.

The clean spoil is being generated by the latest stage of groundworks for the construction of the site's major new intermediate-level waste treatment plant and store.

An estimated 3000 tonnes is being transported a few miles to local farmland where it is being recycled in a drainage improvement scheme.

Hundreds of tonnes of clean rubble from the demolition of the plutonium criticality cell will begin leaving the site in lorries in the next few days.

It will be used to create new hard-standing at a local farm.

"In the past, this sort of material would have been stored or consigned as waste to landfill," said Alex Anderson, head of Dounreay's waste services unit. "Now, our priority is to avoid generating waste in the first place by recycling unwanted material and this is a good example of putting that strategy into practice."

Staff at Dounreay have been advised to take extra care with their safety during this busy period of heavy lorries moving around the site.

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