The transport and beneficial re-use of Crossrail excavated material

Summary

This paper is a version of a paper presented at a conference held by the Italian Tunnelling Society in Verona in May 2014[1]. As such it is largely an introduction to this topic with only limited technical content.
The paper has two parts, the first deals with the nature of the Crossrail excavated material and associated transportation issues. The second deals with the permissions framework that allows the excavated material to be deposited at Wallasea Island to the east of London.
Crossrail is a new UK railway that runs run for over 100km from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. It is currently Europe’s largest construction project. Work started in May 2009 and there are currently over 10,000 people working across over 40 construction sites.
Within Central London Crossrail is routed through 42km of running tunnels. The works in Central London will generate 6,000,000T of excavated material. 4,500,000T of this material will be shipped to be deposited at a Waste Recovery facility at Wallasea Island approximately 60km east of London, where it will be used to create a coastal nature reserve.
Material unsuitable for deposition at Wallasea Island or unsuitable for shipping to Wallasea will be transported by road rail and/or barge to a number of licensed landfill sites to the east of London.
The excavated material is derived from the Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs), Sprayed Concrete Lining (SCL) Tunnels and excavations for Boxes, Shafts and Portals. Crossrail is utilising 8 TBMs, 6 Earth Pressure Balance machines (EPB) and 2 Slurry Machines. The tunnelling strategy is set out in Figure 1.