In May 2022, the Elizabeth Line opened for use. The underground line – which connects suburbs such as Reading to the West End, as well as providing a quick route to Heathrow Airport – has quickly become the UK’s busiest Railway line,* with an estimated 700,000 passengers every weekday.** There’s no denying that this addition to the city’s underground service has been a welcome improvement to London’s infrastructure.
“Yes, we know this, but why do you – a topsoil, stone and composted green waste recycling company – care about the Elizabeth line?” I hear you ask.
Well, something that one might not first consider when hearing about construction of a new underground line, is the soil. Digging a 118 km long, 6.2m wide tunnel through London *** is going to create a big pile of discarded earth.
So what do you do with it? How on earth (excuse the pun) do you get rid of that much waste?
This is where recycling comes in – our area of expertise. The earth dug up from the construction is not waste, but material with huge potential for being repurposed elsewhere.
In this case, 300 million tonnes of earth was transported to a nature reserve owned by the RSPB. The Reserve – in Wallasea, Essex – was able to use this material to build islands, salt marshes and lagoons, providing the perfect wetland conditions for local wildlife to thrive. Thanks to the repurposing of the soil, the reserve has seen a record number of 39,000 birds overwintering on the site.****
In a quote given to the Guardian, Milo Sumner, coastal programmes manager at RSPB England, said: “Wallasea shows what’s possible when business has an ethos of working with, and alongside, nature. The creation of the Elizabeth line was one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in decades, and by collaborating we were able to create a win for nature and people from what would otherwise have been a huge pile of wasted soil.”
Click here to read the full story in the Guardian
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* london.gov.uk, accessed 27/11/2025
** The Elizabeth line continues to transform travel in London on its two-year anniversary, tfl.gov.uk, 24/05/2024, accessed 27/11/2025
*** St. John, A., Barker, J., Frost, S. and Harris, D. (2017). Crossrail project: a deep-mined station on the Elizabeth line, London. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers – Civil Engineering, accessed 27/11/2025
**** Horton, H. (2025). ‘A win for nature and people’: Elizabeth line soil used to create Essex bird haven. [online] the Guardian, accessed 27/11/2025