This report presents the conclusions of a study for exSite Research Limited, a United Kingdom Environmental Trust. The study carried out a state of the art review and investigated the scientific and economic feasibility of risk management with longer term (‘extensive’) remediation of contaminated land by using a combination of growth of biomass crops and organic waste recycling.

A potential for synergy exists between organic waste recycling, biomass production and long term risk management for contaminated land, particularly where the immediate economic case for re-use of the land is marginal. The possibility of income generation from waste management activities and biomass production offers scope for the regeneration of useful and sustainable economic activity on such marginal land. It also offers an alternative economic use to ‘hard’ redevelopment, as well as a means of facilitating such redevelopment, where the topography or extent of surrounding brownfield land inhibits the case for inward investment for a key site where conditions are otherwise favourable. The presence of the plant roots and associated biological activity may play a significant role in the degradation or stabilisation of contaminants, and the presence of the plant cover may also contribute to the stabilisation of the site and increase the amenity value of the site.

Biomass production is already taking place on derelict land in the UK. Frequently the materials, at the surface of the sites where the biomass crops are to be planted, offer poor conditions for sustained growth, such surface materials tend to have a poor ability to provide adequate levels of plant nutrients, poor physical properties and low pH...