EnviroServ's Innovative Soil Hospital Solution

With increasing numbers of our clients looking for zero to waste landfill alternatives, one of our innovative teams has developed a bio-remediation ‘soil hospital’ technology.

EnviroServ HazTech Manager, Pieter Joubert, and Aloes Landfill Manager, Sue Alcock, successfully completed a pilot bio-remediation project at the Aloes Waste Management Facility in Port Elizabeth, finding an alternative solution to the landfill disposal of contaminated soil. Nandi Ndika, Sizinzo Nkombisa and Alex Sijadu from EnviroServ’s laboratory team assisted with the pilot project to determine its success. The experiment was carried out within a controlled environment and samples of the contaminated soil tested at various intervals to determine how rapidly, and to what extent the hydrocarbons were bio-remediated. 

Alcock explains that soil bio-remediation is "the treatment of pollutants in soil (caused by an oil spill, contaminated groundwater, or an industrial process) using microorganisms, such as bacteria, that break down the undesirable substances".

Due to many hydrocarbon spillages occurring on public roads, far from disposal facilities, and with the objective of doing in-situ bio-remediation, Joubert needed to find a product that could be used for the bio-remediation of contaminated soil and also be cost effective for EnviroServ’s client base. The bio-remediation of hydrocarbon contaminated soils uses a proprietary formula designed specifically for EnviroServ. 

Our Eastern Cape Industrial Services team has successfully used the technology to bioremediate fuel contaminated soil as a result of spillages caused by vehicle accidents. 

Due to the pilot projects success, a ‘soil hospital’ has been launched at Aloes for the bioremediation of hydrocarbon contaminated soils. Dawie Malan, Senior Landfill Supervisor at the Aloes landfill facility, was instrumental in assisting Joubert in the construction of a fenced off area on site, in which the bio-piles will be placed.