Soil remediation is part of a larger effort known as environmental remediation. It restores previously contaminated land to an uncontaminated state and is an important part of sustainable development, particularly in relation to resource management and reducing the reliance on landfill (Scottish Environment Protection Agency, nd, p. 4 ). Most countries around the world are actively engaged in some form of soil remediation. Every year in the European Union, several billion euros are spent on cleaning up contaminated land. It is important that this money is spent intelligently and appropriately (Elorriaga, 2014, p. 2). What is soil remediation? Remediation refers to the techniques and processes of treating soils to contain, eliminate, degrade or make contaminants less harmful. These techniques directly treat the environment with the overall aim of reducing real or potential human or ecological risks linked to contaminants (Pierzynski and Sims et al., 2000, p. 377). If there is no immediate threat, the contaminated area can simply be isolated to prevent further spread. Cleanup is considered successful once contamination levels are reduced to background levels or those found in uncontaminated soils. In reality, this is difficult to achieve and the costs can be difficult to justify against the benefits, which has led to a greater focus on reducing risk to an acceptable level rather than on background levels (Pierzynski and Sims and al., 2000, p. 379).There are examples of small-scale soil remediation, such as a homeowner using remediation techniques on their property due to increased lead. There are also large-scale examples, for example after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan...... middle of paper ...... the rapid development of the planet is putting increasing pressure on local water resources but has simultaneously deteriorated the quality of urban groundwater in many cities. Groundwater has been significantly polluted in more than half of China's 660 cities. The transfer of contamination through the soil is partly responsible. The government finally recognized this problem and now spends tens of billions of yuan each year on remediating soil containing heavy metals and treating overexploited groundwater. The Shanghai Center for Soil Remediation was opened in 2005 to study soil remediation technologies in industrialized areas and closely monitor toxic soils in China. The Sino-Singaporean eco-city of Tianhin is being developed on polluted marshes; this process has so far included removing contaminated alkaline soils to filter and clean them, then putting them back (best quality)., 2011).