Pollution Challenges

Selecting Sustainable Solutions

The fundamental challenge for developing countries is to select, from the wide range of techniques and technologies available, those which are most relevant and applicable to the realities and constraints of their local situation.  While there is usually limited access to capital and supplies, what is available in many developing countries is labor and, in many cases, time.  This leads us in the direction of simple approaches to achieve the needed improvements.

Lack of Financing

The "Polluter Pays" principle should obviously apply but bankrupt companies or legal battles can often delay the implementation of urgently needed clean-up.  In many cases, the original polluter can no longer be identified or is unable to pay.

Lack of Recovery Value of Toxic Sites

In some places such as China and India, a number of major schemes have been started where the high cost of the remediation work can be recovered in the land value and a new use.  As a result, there is an increasing level of interest and growing expertise available for cleanups in large and valuable urban sites, often using the best of international technology. Unfortunately, relatively few of the many polluted sites have the potential value to justify the cost of remediation. Small sites, often in urban fringe or rural areas, are unlikely to see any interest from a commercial angle and limited support from the regulatory system, leaving them truly orphaned.