Last weekend we went to take a walk to the Waverton Peninsula Reserve. This place was an oil storage facility owned by the company BP until 2002 when they shut it down and reconverted it into a park. This park connects with the other side of the peninsula where a coal loader has been closed down and abandoned.
All this area is within the Waverton Peninsula Strategic Masterplan, but so far only the park has been done.
During the walk I was thinking in the lecture we had weeks ago about contaminated sites and how industrial areas that have been absorbed by the city have to be decontaminated. These areas, because their industrial past use, have high quantities of very toxic materials and products. Usually all the complex, from the soil to the building roof, is contaminated (depending on the industry type) and needs to be cleaned before any further use can be implemented there.
When these kind of areas are reconverted in green areas or parks it is possible to use plants to absorb this harmful materials naturally and transform them into common vegetable material.
The problem arises when the site has to be built and there is not time for a natural absorption. Then, usually, the entire site is dug and the soil is disposed in a landfill.
This is the worst solution at many levels: bad for the site because this solution is very aggressive with it; bad for the landfill because usually the soil is not cleaned before the disposal.
*All the pictures owned by the author.