Good practice:

Use of non-combustion technology for remediation of obsolete pesticides

The Good Practice (GP) was developed in a highly contaminated former pesticides storage in Klatovy–Luby. The building was contaminated by HCHs (lindane), but also other persistent organic pollutants: DDT and other pesticides. The water and food chain in the surrounding area were contaminated by pesticide residues.
A non-combustion technology was proposed to clean debris and soil contaminated with pesticides and to destroy POPs without risk of formation new ones during combustion of chlorinated compounds.
Copper-mediated destruction (CMD) technology was applied to part of the wastes contaminated with POPs pesticides. Destruction efficiency (DE) reached was greater than 99.999% for HCH and DDT at semi-commercial scale of the technology without any production of POPs waste during the process.
The GP's stakeholders were the agricultural buildings owners, Klatovy town and Pilsen region representatives and authorities, health and enviro protection state institutions (local and regional), fishermen, technical experts involved in risk assessment, remediation and running non-combustion technology, civil society organizations, Klatovy inhabitants, State Fund for Environment (SFŽP), mass-media.
The GP's beneficiaries were the remediated buildings owners, Klatovy inhabitants, fishermen, health and enviro state institutions, population near hazardous waste incinerator (less waste contaminated with POPs burned) and near sites of dioxin contaminated fly ashes are stored/applied.

Total remediation costs were 380 000 €. The action done by DEKONTA was co-financed by the European Union through the Ministry of Environment with 266 000 €. Only a small part of decontaminated waste was processed in the CMD unit.

POPs waste including soil and debris contaminated with lindane and/or HCHs represents most problematic waste. Stockholm Convention suggests to avoid formation of unintentionally produced POPs during disposal operations. So the non-combustion technology avoiding their formation should be preferable before combustion methods. Such technology was used to destroy POPs from the contaminated site in Klatovy – Luby, Czech Republic. Destruction efficiency of this technology reached more than 99.999%.

Although Stockholm Convention objectives suggest otherwise, non-combustion techn. aren´t preferred for POPs waste destruction. Hence it wasn´t easy to handle at least part of the contaminated debris in Klatovy – Luby by non-combustion techn. EU legislations need to create space for innovative techn.

Non-combustion technology (see General Technical Guidelines for POPs Waste) is successfully used for POPs remediation contaminated sites preventing formation of new POPs (unlike the combustion techn. leading to new hazardous waste residues, bottom ash and fly ash). Often, they are available in transportable modules. Such technologies were used to clean sites contaminated with lindane as our example shows for CMD and/or Spolana Neratovice demonstrates for Base-catalysed decomposition (BCD). CMD was also used in Jaworzno, Poland and BCD systems have been used in projects in Australia, Czechia, Spain, USA.
Gas phase chemical reduction (GPCR) or Super-critical water oxidation (SCWO) are other suitable destruction technologies. There is however economic competition (incineration companies are more powerful players) and legislative barriers (EU legislation is not developed enough for these innovative technologies) in more broader use of the above mentioned technologies.