Thermal treatment makes its mark

Thermal treatment is used successfully to fulfill Superfund site treatment under the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) and underground storage tank (UST) regulations for petroleum product contamination of soil. The decision to use thermal treatment is based on cost and environmental regulations. For many organic wastes, thermal treatment has been designated as the best available control technology (BACT) by US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In some instances, the waste generator or potentially responsible party (PRP) would benefit by owning and operating its own thermal processing facility. But, the permitting process for these facilities is expensive and time consuming, so most elect to have the remediation performed by an outside contractor. It is cost effective to ship Superfund and UST wastes to permanent, commercial incinerator facilities for disposal when the amount of material to be treated is less than 20,000 tons. For larger projects, however, bringing the thermal system to the remediation site is preferable. Thermal treatment of contaminated sites with mobile and transportable systems offers versatility and cost effectiveness