Cleaning contaminated environment : a growing challenge

Contaminated sites represent a growing challenge. The more than 3,000,000 potentially contaminated sites worldwide represent a lost economic opportunity and threat to the health and wellbeing of human and the environment. Contamination is the legacy of industrialization and insufficient environmental legislation and enforcement. Although site contamination was recognised some 40 years ago, less than a tenth of contaminated sites have been remediated due largely to the complex and challenging nature of contamination-of major challenge being ground water contamination. Common contaminants include petroleum hydrocarbons, pesticides, inorganics, heavy metals and radioactive wastes. In recognition of the growing challenge pose by contaminated sites, CleanUp conference series has been run in Adelaide since 1996 with the conference delegates increasing 3 fold since the first meeting.