Chemical or Natural? Including LCA in Social CBA to Compare Remediation Alternatives for a Dry-Cleaning Facility

Abstract

The choice between remediation alternatives for contaminated sites is complicated by different elements, e.g., the occurrence of multiple contaminants, the extent of the contamination, or the urban location, complicate the choice between remediation alternatives. This paper addresses this challenging choice by analyzing a case study of an extensive soil and groundwater contamination by a dry-cleaning company. For remediating this site, two alternatives were proposed. The first remediation alternative combines several techniques with in-situ chemical oxidization being the most important one. Due to the potential negative impact of this alternative on local residents a second remediation alternative was drawn up, in which the focus lies on the use of stimulated biological degradation. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was performed on both alternatives and showed that the second alternative had a lower environmental impact. The inclusion of monetized LCA results in the calculation of a social Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) provided a more extensive view of the secondary environmental costs and benefits of the remediation alternatives. The results of the social CBA allow to conclude that both alternatives are not socially desirable, the chemical alternative however is socially less disadvantageous than the more natural remediation alternative.

Health risk assessment and cost–benefit analysis of agricultural soil remediation for tailing dam failure in Jinding mining area, SW China

“…Only one of the chosen parameters changes each time, while the other parameters stay constant. The extent of variation is set as ±20% and ±40% (Huysegoms et al, 2019).…”

“…Parameters 7 is the variation in the soil depth for phytoremediation in the 2 nd period of the remediation process, and parameter 8 is the time span for benefits (health benefit and price of agricultural products). Additionally, not only ±20% and ±40%, time spans of 30 years (Huysegoms et al, 2019) and 75 years (life expectancy) are also applied to discuss long-term effectiveness. NPV is estimated for the variation of each parameter, and the variation ratio in NPV of each variation compared to the original result is also calculated and discussed.…”

“…Some studies showed beneficial remediation actions for industrial areas (Lavee, 2012) or river sediments (Zheng et al, 2019). Some studies showed negative NPV values for industrial soil remediation (Huysegoms et al, 2019). The reason for these differences is the variation in cost/benefit considerations and scenario settings.…”