We partner with our customers and communities to manage and reduce waste from collection to disposal while recovering valuable resources and creating clean, renewable energy.
WMSolutions
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If you have soils or media contaminated with petrochemicals, pesticides, explosives or hazardous organic materials, on-site remediation can be problematic. On-site remediation is expensive and it’s usually very time-consuming. There are also serious legal and regulatory issues to consider when decontaminating soils on-site – issues that can jeopardize the viability of a construction or redevelopment project.
The alternative is off-site remediation. WM, North America’s largest solid waste services company, has developed a collection of innovative off-site remediation technologies to that can help you deal effectively with contaminated soils. One such technology is bioremediation; a process where microorganisms are used to naturally ingest and breakdown toxic compounds.
WM has developed several types of bioremediation processes, including:
TOSSSM is a two-stage, solid-phase bioremediation technology that involves both anaerobic and aerobic treatment stages. In the first stage, explosives-contaminated soil is combined with a carbon source, an inoculum, vitamins and water to permit the growth of anaerobic bacteria. The resulting mixture is formed into a static pile or placed in a bermed construction or box to where these bacteria break the nitroaromatic and nitramine explosives down via digestion.
In the second stage, we combine the anaerobically treated soil with yard waste compost in an aerated biopile. The biopile may be aerated by forced air conveyed through perforated piping buried within the pile, or by turning the pile with a compost turner. Previous testing of TOSSSM has demonstrated TNT removal efficiencies of greater than 99 percent.
The BioSiteSM System is WM's proprietary system for the large-scale bioremediation of soils contaminated with:
Regulated compounds including underlying hazardous constituents (UHC) are screened prior to acceptance. Soils co-contaminated with metals may be accepted depending on their concentration.
Bio-In-A-BoxSM uses the same principles as both BioSiteSM and TOSSSM, but operates on a smaller scale. Instead of being formed into long earthen mounds, the contaminated soil is moistened, mixed with nutrients and custom-grown microorganisms, and then placed in enclosed containers called "solid phase bioreactors" for incubation. These containers may or may not be linked to aeration and vacuum pipes, depending on the contaminants being processed. In just a few weeks, your decontaminated soil will be ready for landfill disposal or reintroduction into the environment.
All of these bioremediation process are conducted at our Chemical WM Subtitle C facilities that are permitted to operate our bioremediation processes. The treatment is conducted at our facility – not yours, thereby allowing you to use land and areas on your plant-site for your operations.
We partner with our customers and communities to manage and reduce waste from collection to disposal while recovering valuable resources and creating clean, renewable energy.
WMSolutions