BTP's decision to recover a degraded area for its terminal development shows that its business model includes socially responsible practices. In addition, this project will solve the problem of one of the oldest and largest environmental liabilities of the state of Sao Paulo - the former dump of Lixão da Alemoa - Porto. Within three years, the site will host a modern container and bulk liquids terminal that will add about 10% to the total capacity of the Port of Santos.

Today, the former landfill area is covered by secondary vegetation, most of it not native, and cannot be used due to the danger of contaminants and waste deposited there.

Added to this is the fact that the new environmentally remediated terminal area will postpone the need to occupy greenfield sites to absorb growing demand projected for Brazil's foreign trade in the coming years, and it will restore the area's natural role of port activity, thus combining environmental responsibility with development for the Port of Santos. Another point is that the port management authority would be unable to make the large financial investment required to clean the soil, which was estimated at around R$ 300 million.

On carrying out its environmental recovery project, some 680,000 m3 of soil and waste will be treated or properly disposed of, under the direct control of environment agencies, so the region will be absorbing unique technology for, and experience of, remediation for large contaminated areas.

It is estimated that remediation would take about 30 years if left to natural processes, and in this period most of the contaminants would reach the estuary and the Saboó River. The process proposed by BTP will solve the problem in about two years, based on its researching methods in use in various parts of the world. Another positive aspect of the new method, which is being used for the first time in Brazil, is that 70% of the soil at the site will be recovered on the site itself and reused in the process of building the terminal, thus avoiding the risk inherent in transporting contaminated material to other disposal sites and reducing the need to look for clean soil in other regions to fill the hollow left by the removed soil, thus diminishing the overall environmental impact of the project.

HOW CLEAN-UP TECHNIQUE WORKS

The decontamination technology to be used by BTP ay the former of Alemoa dump is known as "soil washing", and basically means washing the contaminated layers of soil in the area. The total surface area of the site is being divided into sub-lots of 20 by 20 meters, on in a fully georeferenced grid.
The material removed from these sub-lots is then excavated and sifted to remove waste (plastic, wood, metal, tires, etc.) to be separated and disposed of properly. The remaining soil is then "washed" using specially designed equipment, imported from Belgium. This process separates out chemical contaminants from soil. About 70 to 80% of the treated soil will be clean and returned to the place from which it was removed. An appreciation of the scale of this process is gained from the fact that about 700 kilograms of each ton of soil excavated are cleaned and reused on site.
Any soil that cannot be reused becomes a sort of mud ("cake"), that also goes through a series of filters and is finally disposed of in landfills licensed by specific environmental agencies to take in this waste. The water used in the process is monitored and treated to avoid it being discharged in the estuary or in some other location. Similarly, rainwater is collected and properly treated.
All the different phases of the process are monitored by CETESB, to whom we report the results, thus ensuring constant traceability for the waste and soil resulting from the process. Statistically representative samples of material treated and removed using standardized methods are analyzed to make sure that its quality meets the environmental agency's standards.