Geotube Removal  -  How did they do that?

Before dewatered sediment is loaded into the trucks, a plastic liner is placed in the truck bed. The liner not only protects the truck from contamination, but also allows the material to slide out of the truck easily at the landfill, preventing the need for additional handling.

A backhoe with "teeth" is used to tear into the geotubes. The geotubes and the dewatered sediment are loaded for disposal. In this picture you can see the bucket of a front-end loader which works with the backhoe while loading the truck. You can also see discarded white tubes that were used to sample the dewatered sediment for water content and PCB concentration before being hauled to the landfill.

While this can be a messy operation, you can see in the picture that the backhoe operator is able to load sediment into this truck without spilling very much onto the sides or wheels of the truck. See our How did they do that? section on decontamination for information on how the equipment is cleaned.

After the truck is loaded the plastic liner is folded in, and the entire load is covered.

Dewatered sediment at the landfill.