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Marine sediments from capital and maintenance dredging

It is estimated between 30 and 70 million tonnes per annum of marine sediments from capital and maintenance dredging activities are extracted from the sea bed each year.  These materials are considered waste under the European Waste Framework Directive (EWFD) and regulated as such, meaning they often end up in landfill or disposed of to the marine environment at estuarine and offshore sites.  

Mostly, this legislation protects us and the environment from the harm that may be caused by poor placement of these materials.  However, this legislation can cause problems when attempting to beneficially use ‘clean’ sediments in land based projects and the stigma of these materials being ‘’waste’’ has prevented developers using them. 

The Waste Protocols Project and the ports and marine navigation dredging industry have outlined these issues and helped show that if the right recovery process is used and the sediments are applied in the right end applications, these materials can be used as valuable commodities in port development, flood defence and the construction sector.

The current status

You can review our findings and recommendations on this project via the following document:

Find out how we regulate marine sediments from dredging in land based projects:

For further background reading please see the:

Get involved

If you are a dredging operator or an end user of marine sediments from capital and maintenance dredgings you can visit this page to check any changes to the status of this work.

Bookmark this page to review future information.

More information

If you would like further help, please email Waste Protocols.