Green and Sustainable Remediation Video

This informative video presents the United States Environmental Protection Aency’s (USEPA’s) perspective on green and sustainable remediaton. Through a series of interviews with USEPA staff and the presentation of case studies, you will learn how these sustainable principles can be applied at soil and groundwater remediation sites.

Video – Green and Sustainable Remediation: USEPA’s Persepctive [54:43]
This video is a compilation of USEPA case studies that highlight various strategies successfully used to remediate sites and address environmental problems using green and sustainable practices. Source: USEPA

Green and Sustainable Remediation

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced the term Green Remediation as part of its focus on sustainability. The agency defines Green Remediation as a practice of giving forethought to all environmental effects of remedy implementation and using the solution to maximize environmental cleanup actions. Green Remediation goes hand in hand with Sustainable Remediation. This is defined as solutions or a combination of complex solutions that will have a positive impact on human health and the environment. Sustainable in this context focuses on effectively using limited resources in the right and sensible manner.

When it comes to green remediation, the Environmental Protection Agency focuses on the protection of human health and the environment as the over-arching criteria. The Sustainable Remediation Forum, in turn, takes an integrated Sustainable remediation by including social and economic factors. The two concepts, Green Remediation and Sustainable Remediation are combined to form the Green and Sustainable Remediation which is popularly known as GSR.

Green and Sustainable Remediation can be best described as the use of products, processes, technologies, and procedures that lessen the risk to receptors while making decisions that try to balance community goals, economic impacts, and environmental effects.

Tools for evaluating Green and Sustainable Remediation

Green Remediation Evaluation Matrix (GREM)

(GREM) is a matrix tool developed by the California Department of Toxic Substances. It was created to compare treatment alternatives in terms of their impact on energy, materials, air quality emissions, water, and waste. These factors are referred to as environmental stressors. GREM accounts for all relevant environmental, economic, and social impacts of remediation. It offers results in terms of yes or no alternatives and assigns a qualitative or quantitative score the process is subjective and needs clear and unbiased input.

Sitewise

A tool developed by the US Navy and Battelle Memorial Institute, SiteWise, is used to assess the remedy footprint of a remedial technology. This is done in terms of a consistent set of metrics such as GHG emissions and air emissions. SiteWise allows GSR evaluations to be conducted of remedial alternatives.

Sustainable and Green Remediation Continuing Education Courses

If Sustainable and Green Remediation is of interest to you, consider our continuing education courses that address this subject directly.

CH-02-420 Sustainable and Green Remediation – 4 PDH
This course provides a generalized framework for green and sustainable remediation (GSR). It is intended to be flexible and scalable to each phase of the remedial process. The course provides an introduction to GSR, including definitions of key terms, presents a description of the process of planning a GSR evaluation and the implementation of GSR, and describes the tools available to the GSR practioner.

CH-02-420W Live Webinar: Sustainable and Green Remediation – 4 PDH
This live webinar course provides a generalized framework for green and sustainable remediation (GSR). It is intended to be flexible and scalable to each phase of the remedial process. The course provides an introduction to GSR, including definitions of key terms, presents a description of the process of planning a GSR evaluation and the implementation of GSR, and describes the tools available to the GSR practitioner.