What Is Environmental Remediation? How Contaminated Land Gets Cleaned Up in Canada

As of October 2024, the federal government’s inventory of contaminated sites listed more than 20 thousand locations across Canada, and that list only covers land the federal government is responsible for. 

Most contaminated land in Canada belongs to private owners, municipalities or provinces. Much of it sits under places people drive past without a second thought, such as former gas stations, auto repair garages and dry cleaners. Some of it sits under scrapyards.

When a site like that is cleaned up, the work has a name: environmental remediation. This article explains what it involves, why an old car scrapyard needs it and who decides when the land is clean enough. It ends with a short documentary on our platform about one artist who lost a scrapyard to it.

What environmental remediation means

The Government of Canada describes contaminated sites as places that contain substances in quantities that may be dangerous to human health and the environment. So, remediation is the work of reducing that danger.

That does not always mean removing every trace of contamination. Sometimes the goal is to manage the risk instead, for example by restricting how the land can be used through zoning or other controls. Which approach a site gets depends on what is in the ground, how far it has spread and what the land will be used for next.

In Canada, most cleanup standards are set by each province with national guidance from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. On federal land, the Government of Canada set up the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan in 2005 to fund this work. 

Why an old scrapyard needs cleaning up

Cars are full of things that should never reach the soil. The Canadian Auto Recyclers’ Environmental Code, a national standard developed with Environment Canada, lists mercury, lead, refrigerants, antifreeze, oils, gasoline and other fluids among the hazardous materials in a vehicle. The code also notes that older vehicles frequently leak oil, antifreeze and hydraulic fluid, which can contaminate soil and groundwater.

Today, a responsible recycler drains those fluids before a car is crushed. When a vehicle is dismantled properly, an average of 19 litres of operating fluids is recovered, including engine oil, transmission oil, coolant and fuel. 

Mercury is a particular concern in older cars, because many vehicles built before 2003 used small mercury switches in their convenience lights. The auto recycling industry says there is enough mercury in one of those switches to contaminate a 20-acre lake. If you are retiring an old car, the CAREC website lists recyclers who follow the code.

A vintage scrapyard is not a modern recycler. Cars may sit in a vintage yard for decades, which leaves a long time for whatever they still hold to reach the ground.

How a contaminated site gets cleaned up

Federal guidance lays the process out in steps. First, the site is assessed to find out what is there and how much. Then a remediation or risk management strategy is developed, carried out and monitored.

The methods vary from site to site. These are some of the common ones described in the Government of Canada guidance.

1. Excavation: Contaminated soil is dug up and taken to an approved treatment or disposal facility. Government guidance notes that excavation does not treat the soil by itself, which is why it is usually the first step rather than the whole job. 
2. Treating soil on site: For soil contaminated with petroleum, one option is landfarming, where excavated soil is spread out in thin layers so that biological processes can break the hydrocarbons down. 
3. Using plants: Phytoremediation uses plants to remove or contain contaminants in soil and water. It works best when the contamination is close to the surface. Very high concentrations can be toxic to the plants themselves. 
4. Managing the risk: When removing, everything is not practical, a site can be managed with controls such as zoning or limits on how the land is used. 

How long the work takes depends on the contaminant, the method and the site itself. 

Who decides when land is clean enough

The answer depends on what the land will be used for next. 

Land that will hold houses or a park has to meet stricter standards than land that will stay industrial. In Ontario, for example, a Record of Site Condition must be filed when a property changes from an industrial, commercial or community use to a more sensitive one, such as residential, institutional, agricultural or parkland use. 

There has been real progress on federal land. Of the 24,229 sites on the federal inventory in October 2024, 18,409 had been closed, either because remediation was completed or because assessments found that no further action was needed. 

What a cleanup can take away

Remediation is the right thing for contaminated land. Even so, it is not always simple for the people connected to a place.

That is the story of Echoes in Steel, a 14-minute documentary by Rob Viscardis. The film follows artist Garrett Gilbart, who carves metal and other found industrial materials into sculptural forms that carry the plants, land and histories of the places where the material was found. For years, a vintage car scrapyard supplied him. When it closed for environmental remediation, Gilbart lost a defining source of inspiration and material for one body of his work.

The film follows him as he lets that go. It also looks at our attachment to objects and at our complicated relationship with the land those objects eventually return to.

“We usually talk about cleaning up contaminated land as a simple good, and it is,” says our founder, Scott Renyard. “Echoes in Steel shows what that cleanup can cost one person who found beauty in what we left behind.”

Echoes in Steel was nominated for a Golden Sheaf Award for Best Short Documentary at the Yorkton Film Festival.

Watch Echoes in Steel online

Echoes in Steel is streaming now on The Green Channel, the environmental documentary streaming platform. You can find more films about materials, waste and how we live in our Green Living collection.

Watch Echoes in Steel on our platform today.