Saxon Pit at Whittlesey was evacuated last night after reports of a hand grenade being found.
The pit was closed off – with police in attendance – for five hours.
Police said they were called at about 5pm “following reports a hand grenade had been found on site. The site was evacuated”.
Pit managers and police waited for the arrival of the British Army’s Explosive Ordnance (EOD) team to arrive.
After careful inspection, said police, they “deemed that the grenade was not real”.
Police left the site just after 10pm.
Saxon Pit is where a new advanced incinerator bottom ash recycling facility is being built.
The plant will process incinerator bottom ash, or IBA, which is the product of burning household waste in energy from waste plants.
Each 100kg of black bag waste produces around 20kg of bottom ash.
The company says the alternative would be for it to landfill.
10 percent of what comes in is metal, which is extracted, cleaned, sized and sent to smelters and much of it goes back into things like car production.
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