Legacy wastes in the coastal zone: Environmental risks and management futures

历史上对来自家庭和工业来源的废物的处理往往没有考虑到潜在的环境影响。垃圾通常被存放在垃圾填埋场，这可能会向周围环境释放潜在的污染物。在沿海地区，这样的“传统垃圾填埋场”尤其令人担忧，因为随着气候的变化，它们可能会受到更多的洪水、更大的侵蚀和更极端的干湿循环的影响。管理这类环境问题至关重要，但目前我们没有一个系统的框架来评估和了解沿海地区不同类型废物构成的风险的性质。鉴于英国丰富的工业历史，有广泛的遗留废物储存在河口和沿海地区，如城市废物、矿山废物、钢铁工业副产品、冶炼产生的富含金属的废物和化学加工废物。这项建议汇集了一个专门评估遗留废物的环境风险的研究小组，以(1)提供与沿海地区遗留垃圾填埋场相关的环境风险的国家评估，以及(2)为现在和未来有效管理这些风险提供一个框架。该项目的第一部分将汇集各种国家数据库(例如，关于垃圾填埋场的位置、采矿废物、海岸侵蚀率、海岸管理计划)，以提供一个单一的基于地图的沿海地区遗留垃圾填埋场数据库。然后，我们将与政府机构和学术界的区域专家联系，以整理已记录的风险的详细信息，并确定高风险优先地点(例如，污染风险最大的地点和/或受侵蚀或洪水影响最严重的地点)。这将使我们能够概述沿海堆填区的不同类型的废物，评估它们构成的广泛风险(例如污染物释放、物理侵蚀等)。并考虑从这些地点回收资源的可能选择(例如，可以回收的废金属)。该项目的第二部分将增进我们对不同类型废物在沿海环境中的环境行为的了解。对废物进行的大多数风险评估都假定它们将与淡水接触(例如，模拟废物与降雨接触的淋溶试验)。我们将通过测试不同类型的废物(如城市废物、矿山废物、加工废物)在一系列环境条件下的污染物释放情况，在评估沿海地区的环境风险方面取得重大进展。这些条件将模拟沿海地区目前和未来的环境情景，例如盐度的变化以及气候变化预计会出现的极端潮湿和干燥。至关重要的是，我们将进行实验，测试这些废物在一系列实验范围内的行为(例如，从烧杯大小的实验，到跳跃大小的实验，再到真实地点的测量)。这一点很重要，因为我们要相信，小规模的实验室实验为我们提供了有关废物如何释放污染物的信息，这些信息与实际现场的数据相匹配。这些信息对于延长项目第一部分完成的风险评估至关重要。对遗留废物进行有效的长期管理有赖于许多不同机构的共同努力(例如，理事会、监管机构、土地所有者、工程师)。因此，项目的最后部分将把英国不同地区的不同利益攸关方聚集在一起，(1)评估补救方法，(2)考虑项目早期阶段提出的管理优先事项。将在联合王国的不同行政当局举办一系列讲习班，以制定沿海地区遗留废物的国家管理框架。

Historical disposal of wastes from domestic and industrial sources often took place with little regard for potential environmental impacts. Wastes were often deposited in landfills that can release potential pollutants to the surrounding environment. Such 'legacy landfill' sites are a particular concern in coastal areas where they are likely to be affected by increased flooding, greater erosion and more extreme cycles of wetting and drying as our climate changes. Managing such environmental issues is of critical importance, but currently we do not have a systematic framework by which we assess and understand the nature of the risks posed by different waste types in coastal areas. Given the UK's rich industrial past, there are a wide range of legacy wastes deposited in estuarine and coastal settings such as municipal waste, mine wastes, steel industry by-products, metal-rich wastes from smelting and chemical process wastes. This proposal brings together a team of researchers specialising in assessing the environmental risks of legacy wastes to (1) provide a national assessment of the environmental risks associated with legacy landfills in the coastal zone, and (2) provide a framework for effective management of these risks now and in the future.The first part of the project will bring together various national databases (e.g. on location of landfills, mining waste, coastal erosion rates, coastal management plans) to provide a single map-based database of legacy landfills within the coastal zone. We will then liaise with regional specialists in government agencies and academia to collate detail on documented risks and identify high risk priority sites (e.g. those with the greatest contamination risk and / or those most affected by erosion or flooding). This will allow us to produce an overview of the different types of waste in coastal landfills, assess the broad risks posed by them (e.g. pollutant release, physical erosion etc.) and consider potential options for resource recovery from these sites (e.g. scrap metals that could be recycled).The second component of the project will improve our understanding of the environmental behaviour of different waste types in coastal settings. Most risk assessments for wastes are undertaken assuming they will be in contact with freshwater (e.g. leaching tests that simulate wastes in contact with rainfall). We will provide a significant advance on assessing environmental risks in coastal settings by testing how pollutants are released from different waste types (e.g. municipal waste, mine waste, processing wastes) under a range of environmental conditions. These conditions will simulate the current and future environmental scenarios in coastal areas such as variations in salinity and extremes of wetting and drying that are anticipated with climate change. Crucially, we will undertake experiments that test how these wastes behave across a range of experimental scales (e.g. from beaker sized experiments, through skip-sized experiments, to measurements at real sites). This is important to have confidence that small scale laboratory experiments give us information on how pollutants are released from waste that matches with data from real field sites. Such information is crucial for extending the risk assessments completed in part one of the project. Effective long term management of legacy wastes relies on many different agencies working together (e.g. councils, regulators, land owners, engineers). The final part of the project will therefore bring various stakeholders together in different parts of the UK to (1) evaluate approaches to remediation, and (2) consider management priorities put forward by the early stages of the project. A series workshops will take place in the different administrations of the UK to produce a national management framework for legacy wastes in the coastal zone.