Contaminated Land and Bio-Remediation - Environmental Biotechnology: Theory and Application - page 92

compromise a company's ability to channel sufficient funds to deal with others.
The goal of treating land is to make it suitable for a particular purpose or so
that it no longer poses unacceptable risk and once the relevant aim has been
achieved, further treatment is typically not a good use of these resources. Gen-
erally it would be judged better to devote them to cleaning up other sites, which
maximises the potential reuse of former industrial land thereby protecting urban
open spaces and the countryside from development pressure. In the long term,
the sustainable use of land largely depends on making sure that it is maintained
at a level which enables its continued best use for its current or intended pur-
pose. In this respect, discussions of absolute quality become less relevant than a
consideration of minimum acceptable standards.
It is also worth noting that the concept of sustainability in relation to the
integrated reclamation of brown-field land can vary markedly between develop-
ers, site managers and other key players involved in the redevelopment. Such
considerations have been shown to have potentially detrimental effects on the
successful establishment of 're-greened' brown-field sites (Doick et al ., 2009).
The recently published Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF) UK framework
document identified six 'key principles of sustainable remediation', namely:

1. Protection of human health and the wider environment.
2. Safe working practices.
3. Consistent, clear and reproducible evidence-based decision making.
4. Record keeping and transparent reporting.
5. Good governance and stakeholder involvement.
6. Sound science.

SuRF also noted that at times, it may be necessary to make 'non-optimum
remediation decisions' in order to maximise the wider benefit of the project
(SuRF, 2010). The choice of method and the determination of the final reme-
diation standard will, then, always be chiefly governed by site specific factors
including intended use, local conditions and sensitivities, potential risk and avail-
able timeframe. For this reason, it is appropriate to take a brief overview of
the available technologies at this point, to set the backdrop for the discussions
of the specifically biotechnological methods to come.

Remediation Methods

The currently available processes for soil remediation can be divided into five
generalised categories:

• Biological,

• Chemical,

• Physical,

• Solidification/vitrification and

• Thermal.