Mobile Treatment Licence

Whenever something ‘new’ comes up you can be sure that legislation will quickly follow. There has been a lot of talk in the trade about ‘soil sifting’ – the idea is to try and reduce the amount of material to be taken off site by separating the rhizome of Japanese Knotweed from the clean soil which surrounds it.

We at Japanese Knotweed Solutions are still sitting on the fence on this one!

Yes it would appear on the surface to be a good idea….anything which reduces the amount of contaminated material must be seen as beneficial. The problem comes from the ability of JK to re-grow from the smallest fragment - often quoted as a ‘piece as small as a fingernail’.

Any ‘sifting’ operation will produce hundreds if not thousands of small fragments of JK each with the potential to re-grow…

We believe that there are certain sites which will benefit from ‘sifting’ but only when used as part of a continued strategy of on site treatment works.

The Environment Agency are now asking that any operator carrying out ‘sifting’ operations. must hold an MTL – or Mobile Treatment Licence to carry out these works.

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