Black and White photo of a digger with a REMU screening bucket

OUR HISTORY

WHERE WE’VE COME FROM

ERS was established in 1994 as a specialist contractor offering soil and groundwater remediation.  The company was bought by an American company, Environmental Reclamation Inc. (ERI) which specialised in remediation for the metalliferous mining industry.

Following a management buyout in 2003, ERS became an independent UK registered company.

ERS existed throughout the introduction of the contaminated land regime and development of the industry guidance in the UK. Over time, the company structure has evolved in order to meet the requirements of the field, and in particular the need for a deeper technical knowledge and a multidisciplinary approach.

In 2002 ERS established a technical division with an initial focus on both understanding contaminant behaviour in soil and groundwater and assessing risks to human health and the environment. As the industry knowledge of risk assessment developed, the focus moved to accurate data collection, on‐site analysis and laboratory treatability studies to support our remediation projects and soil treatment centres. In 2005, ERS opened a laboratory facility within our Glasgow headquarters.

Similarly in 2005 ERS established a drilling division in response to internal requirements for specialised injections and extraction wells, and the market demand for high quality geo-environmental and geotechnical site investigations.

ERS is a truly multi-disciplinary contractor with a mix of scientific and engineering expertise, including: geology, hydrogeology, engineering (civil, agricultural, electrical, mechanical), geochemistry, biochemistry and microbiology.

In 2016, ERS became 100% employee owned; find about what is and what it means for ERS, on our Employee Ownership page.

Today, ERS employs around 35 people, based at offices in Glasgow, Inverness and Edinburgh. However we work on sites across the UK for our many clients based in various regions.

WHAT WE’VE ACHIEVED

We’re proud of what we’ve achieved to date. Some of our key achievements include:

ERS was the second licensed remediation contractor in the UK.

ERS is now licensed in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

ERS pioneered the use of Soil Treatment Centres, opening the first in 2003.

ERS has successfully remediated over 1 million tonnes of contaminated soil across 100 sites

ERS has now investigated some 800 potentially contaminated sites.

Soil remediation techniques employed include bioremediation (in situ and ex-situ), soil washing, stabilisation/ solidification, soil vapour extraction, dual phase extraction, thermal remediation and chemical oxidation and reduction (in-situ and ex-situ), along with a wide variety of groundwater treatment techniques.

ERS has had a key involvement on most of the “Special Sites” on the Contaminated Land Regime in Scotland.