THE WEST German research minister, Heinz Riesenhuber, announced earlier
this month that his ministry would pay for the cleaning up of two or three
severely polluted industrial dumps as a pilot exercise to compare technologies
for decontaminating land.
Riesenhuber said that of 50 000 dumps and old industrial sites in West
Germany, 5000 to 6000 are in urgent need of cleaning, at an estimated cost
of DM20 billion (Pounds sterling 6.7 billion). Instead of carting away polluted
soil to be dumped elsewhere, Riesenhuber said that in future the pollution
should be dealt with on site. He says that his ministry has spent DM 84
million on research to develop more than 100 new ways of dealing with waste,
but that there is not enough practical experience to enable waste handlers
to choose among them. The techniques used at the pilot sites will include
washing, burning, and biological techniques, including the use of microorganisms
that can degrade persistent pollutants.
Some hazardous sites are 150 years old. They date from the birth of
the German chemical industry, and are no longer in anyone’s charge. The
government is preparing a new law to establish responsibility for cleaning
up the sites.
One trouble-spot was publicised this month. It is at a cable factory
near Stuttgart, shut in 1985. Each kilogram of earth at the site carries
up to 27 770 nanograms of various dioxins. These are higher concentrations
than those measured in the town of Seveso, Italy, which was evacuated in
1976 after a chemical accident that released dioxins.