Industrial - Case Study 3

Danger UXB? Not a problem. Acumen’s calm thinking and international sourcing provide solution for munitions manufacturer

This customer is a global company operating from several sites in the aeronautical and defence industry. On one of these sites the company inherited a large consignment of World War 2 munitions which required disposal. This project had the following issues:

• the company had inherited a stock of some 250 tonnes of 6 inch phosphorous shells. They were volatile because of their age. Our customer needed safe and secure transportation and destruction to resolve the problem
• as the waste stream included phosphorous it created an additional hazard and reduced the options for disposal

The company had identified incineration as the only disposal option which would have been high risk and costly.

Acumen investigated the alternatives: .

• to achieve safe transportation Acumen designed and supervised the build of special type-specific containers and achieved UN Classification to enable the safe packaging and shipping of the shells
• identified and sourced a phosphorous recovery plant in France. Here the valuable phosphorous was totally reclaimed and the heavy steel shells were sheared and re-cycled
• Acumen met the customer’s need for secure destruction and achieved 100% recovery, with a dramatic reduction in costs

Acumen was able to provide an innovative solution to an exceptionally difficult problem. Our solution was environmentally friendly and minimised costs to the company.

Clear thinking . . . .