The importance of looking after the environment can’t be understated, but sometimes recycling simply isn’t enough. Occasionally, our intervention needs to be a little more drastic, often in the form of environmental remediation. This is the process of cleansing the surrounding environment of contaminants and other harmful materials. Such contaminants may be removed from soil and sediment, as well as groundwater and surface water. The team at Borehole Solutions are extending their environmental arm to provide a little more detail on remedial action.
What Are The Different Types Of Environmental Remediation?
A broad range of different processes are covered by remedial action, including the following:
Excavation
Excavation – a soil remediation technique – functions as one of the simpler remedial techniques. Some techniques require particular chemicals or solutions, but this isn’t always the case. Much of the time, a good old-fashioned digger to transport contaminated material to a landfill is all that’s needed. Excavation isn’t always this simple, of course, with some cases requiring aeration and oxidation processes.
Before the material can be dumped, however, it must first be established what landfill is suitable for excavated waste. You can take a look at our previous blog post on Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) testing, here! The marine alternative to excavation – dredging – is also worth mentioning here. This will be used if contaminated material is found within a riverbed’s silt.
Pump & Treat
This is a well-established environmental remediation technique, although not the most common. This is due to the expense and relative slowness of treating the contaminated groundwater. As you may expect, this process involves pumping out the groundwater. Following this, the contaminated water can either be treated or disposed of safely.
Bioremediation
The interesting, yet complex, nature of bioremediation has made it a fairly uncommon remedial technique. Furthermore, it can be difficult to implement regardless of its pertinence to the project due to a lack of implemented policy frameworks. The prefix ‘bio’ refers to the process of growing microorganisms; used to degrade the contaminants and pollutants.
Surfactant Enhanced Aquifer Remediation (SEAR)
The conventional pump and treat remediation techniques can be enhanced by SEAR. The surfactant molecules of this process are able to dissolve typically insoluble contaminants, following their injection into contaminated groundwater. This is a particularly fast and effective way to cleanse an area of contaminated material.
Asbestos Removal
One of the most common, and widely understood, forms of contamination testing is the process of testing for asbestos. This is mainly due to its prevalence as a construction material, up until 1999 when the UK chrysotile asbestos ban was introduced. As a known carcinogen, asbestos can cause cancer, so must always be dealt with safely (and legally) by qualified contractors.
What Does Borehole Solutions Offer?
The dedicated Borehole Solutions team has extensive knowledge and experience of environmental remediation techniques, for both soils and waters. Aside from the above, our expertise and services include, but are not limited to:
● Redox (Reducing agents)
● HRCs (Hydrogen Releasing Compounds)
● ORCs (Oxygen releasing Compounds)
● PRBs (Permeable Reactive Barriers)
● Solidification
● Vent trenching
● Active gas extraction systems
● Stabilisation
● MNA (Monitored Natural Attenuation)
● Solvent (free product) recovery
● Soil washing
● Thermal Desorption
Testing isn’t our only output, of course! We also have a fleet of drilling rigs at our disposal, ready to provide an extensive range of geotechnical and ground investigation services!
Contact Us
Would you like to find out more about our environmental remediation services? If so, please get in touch! You can contact Borehole Solutions today on 01733 200 501.
