Site remediation is a pressing issue in European countries due to limited availability of land. Therefore, much progress is being made in the development of effective technologies for remediating contaminated sites. The purpose of the program described in this paper was to investigate the most successful and innovative European technologies for potential introduction into U.S. markets. Phase I of this EPA–sponsored project was a 9‐month research effort which identified 95 innovative technologies in use or being researched in foreign countries. During Phase II, the most promising technologies identified in Phase I were studied in–depth through personal interviews with the engineers who research and apply these technologies, and through tours of laboratory models and full–scale installations. Phase III of the assessment effort culminated in the first forum on innovative domestic and international hazardous waste treatment technologies on June 19–21, 1989, in Atlanta, Georgia. The most successful full–scale technologies investigated were developed in the Netherlands and West Germany. These technologies include vacuum extraction of hydrocarbons from soil, in situ washing of cadmium‐polluted soil, in situ steam stripping, and a number of landfarming and soil washing operations. The paper provides description of 11 soil remediation techniques that have shown such promise in laboratory studies or in practice to warrant consideration of their use in the United States, and summary information on the international technologies selected for presentation at the Phase III forum as they relate to soils remediation.

No abstract