Remediation Technologies, from Incineration to Phytoremediation: The Rediscovery of the Essential Role of Soil Quality

The remediation of contaminated soils started years ago using consolidates technologies (incineration, inertization, etc.) usually employed in the waste treatment. This has contributed to consider a contaminated soil as a hazardous waste. This approximation was unfortunately transferred in many European legislations and on this basis soil quality have been used only marginally considered in the clean-up procedures. For many years, soil quality has been identified by the concentration values of contaminant and excavation and landfill disposal of soil has been largely used. In recent years, the knowledge of technologies has rapidly grown and soil remediation is now based on innovative technologies, which are largely dependent on soil properties. The new environmental policies are increasingly promoting "Green remediation" and "Natural Based Solution" strategies: which consider all environmental effects of remedy and incorporate all the options to maximize environmental benefit. These remediation strategies restore contaminated sites to productive use with a great attention to the global environmental quality, including the preservation of soil functionality by the use of minimally invasive technologies such as bioremediation and phytoremediation. Moving from the definition of remedial targets based on contaminant concentrations, it is essential to select technologies with low environmental impact to avoid the destruction in a very short time of an essential non-renewable resource, such as the soil.