Table Data Type And Tempdb

Hi,

I have some stored procedures that create table data types for temporary tables. From everything I've read about these, they shouldn't occupy space in tempdb. However we've been having problems with our tempdb log growing quite large, so I've done some profiling on the database and found that the temporary tables are being created in tempdb, and I don't understand why.

The Stored Procedure looks like:
-- WORKING TABLES
DECLARE @t_InsertParams TABLE (ParamKey1 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, ParamValue VARCHAR(1024), ParamOrder INT)


/*** POPULATE PARAMS TABLES ***/
INSERT @t_InsertParams
SELECT *
FROM dbo.GetParamsOffload(@p_ParamList, @p_TargetTable)

and GetParamsOffload is a user defined function that returns a table:
CREATE FUNCTION GetParamsOffload(@p_ParamsList AS VARCHAR(8000), @p_TargetTable AS VARCHAR(50))
RETURNS @t_Params TABLE (ParamKey1 VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, ParamValue VARCHAR(1024), ParamOrder INT)
AS
<snip>
INSERT @t_Params
SELECT @_ParamKey
,@_ParamValue
,ISNULL(@_ParamOrder, 0)
<snip>
RETURN

During the profiling of the application, I see numerous records of EventType "Object:Created" for the tempdb DatabaseId and the ObjectName is both @t_InsertParams and @t_Params. I am also monitoring the "Objecteleted" EventType, but I never see these objects deleted.

My first question is why this code uses the tempdb in the first place. I've read that you can't use the table data type in a few instances (can't insert the values of a SP execute into the table data type; cannot do SELECT INTO or INSERT INTO statements). Is there an issue with inserting data into the table data type from a function? Is there something that can be changed in the way the table data type is defined/used that will not use tempdb?

If I am stuck with the above using tempdb, is there something that should be explicitly called to Delete the specified objects from tempdb? Do I need to Drop those tables in my SP?

This SP is called via a CSV file parser - gets called A LOT over and over parsing files and I see these objects getting created in tempdb. I need to figure out how this process can manage the space in tempdb better.

I'm using SQL Server 2000.

Thanks for any help.
Beth