RISK ASSESSMENT AND LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT APPLICATION FOR A SUSTAINABLE REMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED SITES

When approaching the remediation of a contaminated industrial site, several aspects ought to be taken into consideration. Since the primary aims of a remediation are the safety of human health and the protection of the environment, sustainability, defined by the Brundtland Commission (Our Common Future) as development meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, should be the driving concept for the remediation planning. For this reason, sustainability assessment tools and indicators must be applied, starting from the planning phase, in order to compare the different technologies and techniques available and choose among them the most suitable one for the specific application. Two different tools have been applied to the case study of a former quarry site, where soil and groundwater contamination has been historically detected: 1. Risk Assessment, aimed to simulate exposure of possible human targets to pollutants and threads posed to their health in the short, medium and long term; 2. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), applied to quantify environmental impacts and benefits deriving from different remediation options. In this sense, Life Cycle Assessment represents a powerful decision supporting tool. Developed in compliance with UNI EN ISO 14040(44):2006, it is generally applied for the assessment of eco-efficiency and environmental impact of product and processes, allowing the quantification of environmental impacts generated throughout the whole life cycle already during the design phase. In the eco-design perspective, the implementation of LCA tool enables to tackle the 80% of the overall environmental impact of a product/process.