Clean-up (contamination)

We can clean up contaminated ports and pump the material ashore, so it can be placed in landfill. Ports can be contaminated by TBT or arsenic. We have environmental buckets with lids and environmental clamshells which we can install on our barge excavators to dig up the sediment. The contamination is primarily from the past, when factories and wastewater treatment plants discharged into the harbour. Today, the contamination has often been spread around the harbour by ships manoeuvring as they dock. 

All contaminated harbours have to be cleaned up. They gradually get cleaner and cleaner, and after a few years the excavated material can be released instead of pumping it into landfill.

We dig up the material, load it on our barge, and sail it to our pump barge, from where we pump it ashore. We can also sail the material to the desired landfill location elsewhere in the municipality or region. TBT and arsenic do not break down in water, so they do not disappear from the seabed. However, they do break down in air, so after a few years in landfill, sand can be added on top. Piles can then possibly be driven in the area in preparation for construction.

We have cleaned up Odense Fjord and Randers Fjord several times.

Odense Fjord cleaned up several times into landfill

Frederikshavn Harbour cleaned up into landfill

Randers Fjord cleaned up into landfill

Ladebow DE – 50,000 m3 pumped into landfill in 2018.

Lübeck DE pumped into landfill in Wismar in 2018/2019.