We wish to demonstrate that metals can be economically separated from wet oily sludges, and thus show that these toxic sludges need not be burnt or sent to landfill as at present. In spite of the loss of metal and the environmental damage caused by combustion/landfill, this can still be cheaper than current separation methods. This is largely because existing separation plants use a combination of high temperatures, vacuum, and solvents which makes these desorption plants expensive to build and run, and challenging to run safely. In the case of the very high volumes of iron containing wastes generated by the metal working and metal producing industries, the value of the reclaimed iron is often insufficient to overcome the high costs of processing. In contrast to these existing systems, our laboratory experiments appear to show that separation can be made to occur at room temperature, using an unusual mechanical separation technique, which we think “shears” the oil off the metal particles. Once separated, the metal falls through the water, while the oil rises to the top. Using this technique, we have already produced solids with a high enough metal content and a low enough oil content to be commercially useful, and has done this with wastes from a variety of sources. However, it is not clear whether these experiments can form the basis of a commercially viable system. We cannot predict how (or even whether) the fluid mechanics of our threephase, oil/solids/water separator will scale upwards. We have therefore decided that we need this preliminary feasibility stage to investigate this, prior to considering whether to attempt to design and build a proper development prototype.