Sustainable Strategies for Industrial Soil Remediation

Strategies of Sustainable Industrial Soil Remediation
Growing environmental issues regarding soil contamination due to industrial activities have raised growing concerns in all parts of the world. Among them, manufacturing, mining, and chemical industries are of utmost relevance because they have left behind heavy metals, organic solvents, and petroleum hydrocarbons, which threaten the ecosystem, health, and agriculture. Thus, due to the growing global need for a greener, cleaner approach towards practices, focus has been diverted towards sustainable strategies for soil remediation.

This includes detoxification or removal of the contaminants that exist in the soil. Soil remediation, therefore becomes a part of recovering ecosystems as well as human health. Over time, technology and sustainability have been refined to an extent that hundreds of techniques have emerged which may be said to detoxify contaminated sites but at the least harm to the environment. These are some of the most viable and effective techniques in industrial soil remediation.

Bioremediation: Reaching out for natural power
This technique of soil remediation is the least pollutant of all. This technique introduces microorganisms, plants, or fungi into the soil that are intended to degrade, transform, and detoxify polluting agents. This technique works based on the natural capabilities which degrade the contaminated materials like hydrocarbons or heavy metals into less harmful substances.

Phytoremediation is the subcategory of bioremediation. In phytoremediation, plants are used to absorb and hold poisonous materials found in the soil. There are specific types of plants, like sunflowers, that absorb metals such as lead or arsenic into the body and are, therefore, harvested to remove all these toxicities in the soil.

It is also a low cost and inexpensive technology. Also, the technology has low intensity and may be easily used in large extent of contaminated soil. This will reduce the intake of toxic chemicals to some extent, hence environment friendly industrial technology for remediation of contaminated soils.

Phytoremediation: Plant-Based Solutions
It has become more popular since it bears less environmental impacts besides much more pollutants that it detoxifies, particularly metals and organic compounds. Basically, it is a technique involving the sowing of particular species which can absorb, decompose, and stabilize the toxic pollutants in soil. The plants will accumulate or store contaminants naturally in the tissues, or they can metabolize the toxic chemicals into non-toxic substances.

Examples include hyperaccumulators such as Indian mustard and mustard, which absorb heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and zinc. Healthy soil cleansing apart from enriching biodiversity is cleaning the soil.

This technique is slowly being adapted into the architecture of the plans intended to neutralize the effects of the pollution resulting from the industrial site. Phytoremediation may also be amalgamated with any other process, say bioremediation, to create an improved effective system that in overall leads to more integrated and more environmental-friendly results that are desired from the solution developed to this hazard towards repairing the disaster of environmental disfigurements.

Soil Washing: Cost effective as well as environment-friendly
This is purely a mechanical method of soil washing. Contaminants in the soil are removed in the process, by washing its contaminants with water or chemical solutions. In this technique, the contaminated soil is agitated with water or any special washing solution where all pollutants of the soil, be it organic and inorganic material, separates from the particles of the soil. Such polluted liquid is then treated to remove the pollutants, and clean soil is brought back to the site.

This is the removal of inorganic contaminants, heavy metals, and many others from industrial settings. It is a more effective method as well as saves much time and can be done where other bioremediation or phytoremediation cannot occur. This process also friendly to the environment since the formation of the wastes produced reduces its production while incorporated with the use of electrokinetic remediation with higher rates of improvement.

Electrokinetic Remediation: Use of Electrical Currents
Electrokinetic remediation is the new technology which uses electric currents to mobilize the contaminants from the soil. Therefore, it will mobilize all charged pollutants, making it easy to remove them by the application of electrical fields to polluted soil. The general method applies primarily in the treatment of heavy metals and removal of organic compounds, as well as all other challenging-to-treat pollutants.

It is the very low electrical current applied to the soil that makes possible the moving of charged contaminants toward electrodes where it will be collected for treatment. This could prove an effective and sustainable remedy for those sites that need to target and remove contaminants.

Electrokinetic remediation has an advantage of remediating a highly contaminated area. Unlike in other remedial techniques, electrokinetic remediation does not require much excavation as well as does not apply such harmful chemicals; therefore, it is a more greener type of remedial activity to remediate industrial pollution sites.

Landfills and containment:
There are some industrial sites that cannot be remediated fully, especially those sites having a huge level of contaminants in site or located at inappropriate areas. More sustainable landfill solutions could be used in stabilizing the pollutants so that there will be no further contamination. To date, landfills are built with better liners so that contaminants could not go into the soil and groundwater.

Completely isolated soils contaminated by adding a cap over the contaminated portion of the soil while adding clean layers on both sides.
Containment is being used with the short-term remedial measures as the long-term remedial measures are in process. The contaminants do not leach out from the ground; however, it ensures that the products result from industries do not move outward to create the problem in ecosystems.

Practical Techniques and Strategies along with Compliance to Regulations
In reality, good techniques coupled with good planning and regulations on the environment determine the successful remediation of soils. In most instances, most regulatory agencies enforce restoration of sites that are contaminated to specified set environmental standards through restoration by industrial operators. The restoration of a site by industrial operators should adopt sustainable remediation practices with reduced negative impacts to the surrounding environment.

Remediation practices include the remediation of the soil through the observation of the environment, communication with the stakeholders, and constant evaluation of the remediation process. With these remediation practices in the project, the industry will not cause harm to the environment yet enforce the regulation.

Conclusion
Due to continued pollution by industrial activities, there is a greater demand for these sustainable methods of soil remediation. Clean-up of industrially polluted sites can be achieved not only with efficiency but also with environmental safety through the remediation techniques like bioremediation, phytoremediation, soil washing, and electrokinetic remediation that significantly minimize the use of aggressive chemicals and large-scale excavation in restoring the environmental health of soil.

These soil remediation techniques, by the sustainable process, result in developing cleaner healthier environments. Increasing pressure on industries requiring them to decrease their footprints on nature calls for them to adopt more innovative technologies and means of reducing the pollution legacies left behind by such industries.

Source: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)