Green and sustainable remediation of polluted sites: new concept, assessment tools, and challenges: Fid-Bau Portal

Green and sustainable remediation of polluted sites: new concept, assessment tools, and challenges

REDDY, Krishna / KUMAR, Girish

Contaminated sites are one of the major environmental problems faced by many countries across the globe. In the United States alone, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has identified several tens of thousands of contaminated sites that need remediation, many of which are on the national priority list requiring urgent remedial action. The conventional approach to contaminated site remediation involves identifying the contaminants of concern and their site‐specific risk‐based allowable concentrations to which the contaminant concentrations at the site must be reduced by employing certain suitable remediation technologies. However, the choice of remedial technology for the contaminated site remediation is largely driven by the potential of the technology to reduce the contaminant concentrations to the target risk‐based levels, cost, time and ease of implementation of the remediation technology at the site. This approach does not address the potential negative environmental impacts from the enormous use of energy and resources by the remediation activities. Consequently, the broader environmental impacts such as the toxic air emissions, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and other environmental waste streams that result from their use are unaccounted. Hence, the net environmental benefit from the site remediation always remains questionable. In recent years, a more holistic approach of green and sustainable remediation, involving the quantification of net environmental, economic, and social impacts/benefits from site remediation activities is given great importance to achieve sustainable development. This study presents a brief overview on the concept of green and sustainable remediation along with triple bottom line sustainability assessment of the potential remedial alternatives in contaminated site remediation. A list of existing tools for sustainable remediation is identified and their relative effectiveness in sustainability assessment of remediation technologies is discussed. Finally, some of the major challenges and opportunities associated with implementation of sustainable remediation are highlighted.