Legacy Waste

Legacy wastesLegacy wastes are the wastes that are the result of events in the past. They include past industrial sites and radioactive wasteRadioactive waste disposalDisposal sites. Europe has around 150,000 to 500,000 landfillLandfill sites, with around 90% of them being “non-sanitary” landfillsLandfill that tend to be filled with municipal solid wasteMunicipal Solid Waste (MSW) (MSW) and often any environmental protection technology. To avoid future health and environmental problems, many of these landfillsLandfill need remediationRemediation measures with an opportunity for a combined resource recovery and remediationRemediation strategy. About 60 abandoned uraniumUranium production sites throughout rural Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan pose a challenge for local and national governments that require technical expertise as well as resources for remediationRemediation. Over 190 Mt of legacy iron and steel slagSlag are present in the UK. India added 31 Mt of waste to the legacy wasteLegacy wastes in 2016 to its 3,159 operational dumpsites and dumped 23.35 Mt of waste in existing dumpsites in 2019. More than 3200 contaminated sites have been identified in 2016 in 47 countries. Legacy waste has to be managed to get the land beneath it and protect environmentEnvironment. RemediationRemediation and reclamationReclamation are being done throughout the world wherever budgetBudget permits to do so. In other places, it continues to be accumulated which becomes responsibility for the next generation to manage it. This chapter discusses the key issues related to legacy wasteLegacy wastes and solutions, and their management.