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BRITAIN should emulate West Germany and the Netherlands by setting up
a specific policy to protect land from degradation and contamination. This
call comes from the House of Commons Environment Committee, which has published
a report criticising the government’s stance towards sites blighted by past
industrial use, the disposal of waste and sewage, the presence of heavy
metals, chemicals, asbestos and radioactive materials.

The MPs says that Britain’s methods of cleaning up land are often technically
inferior to Dutch and West German practices. Although the all-party group
has tried ‘not to be alarmist’, it says that people’s health has been put
at risk because of ‘complacency’ by both central and local government. It
also says that ground water has been endangered.

The MPs believe that up to 50 000 hectares of land in Britain may be
contaminated with toxic wastes. They attack the government’s policy as ‘inadequate’
and ‘piecemeal’, citing in particular the following failures:

weak planning controls;

secrecy and lack of detailed information;

inconsistent technical advice and inappropriate standards for cleanups;

insufficient resources to eradicate the problems.

The report concludes that ministers have underestimated the scale of
the problem, and that they have misdirected effort and resources for land
treatment. It draws on evidence submitted to the committee’s inquiry last
year (This Week, 24 June 1989).

The government’s current policy is based on the premise that the level
of cleanup is determined by the site’s future use. If a car park is planned,
the site may simply be covered with a layer of clean topsoil before concrete
or asphalt is laid. If homes are to be built, the contaminated land receives
more treatment or is stripped away.

‘True cleanup is rare in Britain,’ says the report. It contrasts this
with policy in West Germany, where the government has adopted the concept
of Bodenschutz (‘soil protection’). This holds that soil is a scarce and
valuable resource which must be conserved for present and future use.

The MPs express concern that, compared to other countries, Britain has
made relatively little use of biotechnological techniques to clean contaminated
land. These methods use microbes to help to break down complex organic compounds
into simpler and safer derivatives. The techniques are suitable for use
against oil hydrocarbons (PAHs), tars, phenols and some chlorinated compounds.
They may eventually be successful for use on dioxins, cyanide compounds
and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

In the Netherlands, rotary kilns are used to remove tars, phenols, cyanide
compounds and polychlorinated aromatics and mercury. The Dutch also clean
up soil by steam stripping. Steam is injected through pipes in the soil.
The temperature goes up to 200 Degree C, evaporating some of the contaminants.

The report presses the government to introduce registers of contaminated
sites. It calls for a specialist unit in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution
to coordinate policy and technical advice, tougher planning controls and
more public money to help clean up sites. It also wants landowners to say
if sites are contaminated when they sell.