Pesticide burial grounds in Poland: a review

Abstract

Obsolete pesticides were stored in Poland from the middle sixties until the late eighties of the 20th century mostly in underground disposal sites, called "pesticide burial grounds" or "pesticide tombs". The total amount of pesticide waste and packaging materials disposed of in these landfills exceeded 20000 Mg. Typically, the content of a pesticide tomb was dominated by organochlorine pesticides (comprising 10-100% of the total waste volume) with DDT as the prevailing compound. Other pesticide types, such as phosphoroorganic, carbamate insecticides, dinitrophenols, phenoxyacids, and inorganic compounds were stored in smaller quantities, usually not exceeding 10-20% of the total waste volume. With the growing awareness of the threats that these landfills posed to the environment, the first inventory for the whole country was made in 1993 and remediation was initiated in 1999. The total amount of waste, which had to be removed from the known pesticide tombs (hazardous substances, contaminated soils, construction materials etc.) was about 100000 Mg. According to the National Waste Management Plan, the reclamation of pesticide tombs was assumed to have been finished by the end of 2010, however, this goal has not been achieved. The aim of this review is to present a historical perspective of pesticide burial grounds in Poland with an emphasis on their creation, function, inventory, and remediation. Based on unpublished reports, and other published materials of limited availability written in Polish, this review may serve as a source of information for representatives of other countries, where remediation of pesticide burial grounds is still in progress. The experience gained over a ten-year period, when restoration of pesticide tombs was implemented in Poland, reveals that there are many obstacles to this action arising not only from technical, but also from economic and social issues.