A PETROL company has buried five new Mercedes sports cars to spark Britains biggest treasure hunt.

Drivers hoping to find one of the £35,000 SLKs will have to follow a series of clues on cards distributed at garages. If they crack the code, they will be led along the road to one of the luxury motors.

Texaco buried the Mercs 20ft deep across the UK in special protective containers (supplied by Leavesley Container Services). The operation has been shrouded in incredible secrecy to prevent cheating.

Contractors had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Everyone involved in burying the cars was led to abd from the site blindfolded. Gardeners were called in to reconstruct the landscape. And only a Texaco branded hubcap marks each location. Texaco marketing chief Mick Jones said: "Even I don't know where the cars are."

Under the hubcaps are kits telling winners how to claim their Merc. But people who stumble on one will not be able to win without having clue cards. The hunt will be backed by a huge advertising campaign featuring giant moles driving SLKs.

To avoid time wasting, motorists who reckon they are on the right track can phone a hotline to check. Mr Jones said: "We expect more than two million drivers to take part. It should be really exciting."

A small company won a contract to reprocess plastic waste at a factory. Due to the bulky nature of the waste they wanted to establish an independent 'on site' facility, to recycle the bulky items into granules. The resulting granules could then be transported from site easier and more economically.

The requirement was for a facility where waste product could be stock piled in a secure area, then go through a conveyor type system, through the granulating process, then, after bagging, #to be stored in another, separate, secure area prior to despatch from site.

Two 40ft containers were supplied, with a link section designed to bridge between the two units to form a 'U' shape. Roller shutter doors were installed into the side panels of each container, to allow ease of access between the units. A pair of gates were then fabricated to close the open mouth of the 'U' when the operation was not in use.

Waste was fed through the first container, then processed through the granulator mounted in the link unit, and then bagged and stored within the second container. The open area between the containers was used for stockpiling the waste prior to recycling.

A house building company established a need to provide site storage, office space, and amenity units for their employees engaged in construction work. A standard package was required, which was to have gas and electric lighting and heating, basic cooking/canteen facilities, toilet facilities, and office accommodation.

20ft good condition second hand containers were used as the basis for the conversion work, which were modified to provide the customers requirements, fitted with extra security features, and finished in the customers colour scheme. The washrooms were fitted with toilets, urinals and wash basins, and also an area for staff to change and store clothing, with low level heating including frost stat for cold weather working.

A customer needed to establish a shot blast facility, which could be moved easily from site to site, using a large capacity shot blast machine, with associated equipment and storage for a bagged supply of shot. The major hurdle was that the machine was some 10ft high, and due to the nature of the operation, everything had to be kept dry.

After due consideration we proposed a standard 20ft.container, with part of the roof panel removed, and then a fabricated roof extension welded into place, like a camel's hump.

We also supplied a mechanical lift (elevator) to enable the 50kg bags of shot to be raised from ground level to the top of the shot blast hopper, fed onto a tray, and then tipped into the hopper. An internal stairway was included in the design.

The project was so successful that we went on to manufacture further units based on 40ft containers, which had the shot blast equipment at one end, an internal partition with safety door, and a large air compressor, with all associated pipework and controls/filters etc; at the other end. Double doors were provided at both ends of the container, incorporating emergency exits. Adjustable louvres were fitted to aid airflow and cooling. Electrical installation consisted of single and three phase supply, with internal trunking, and a transformer to provide both 110 and 240 volt circuits.