Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Incorporating life cycle assessment with health risk assessment to

select the greenest cleanup level for Pb contaminated soil
Deyi Hou a, *, Shengqi Qi a, Bin Zhao a, Mark Rigby b, c, David O'Connor a
a
School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
b
Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
c
Parsons, 10235 South Jordan Gateway Suite 300, South Jordan, UT 84095, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Green and sustainable remediation (GSR) has emerged as one of the most important pioneering di-
Received 1 January 2017 rections in the environmental remediation eld. The GSR concept calls for maximizing the net envi-
Received in revised form ronmental benet (NEB) by taking into account not only the environmental benet, but also the life cycle
4 June 2017
environmental cost of remediation operations. However, existing literature to date has not examined
Accepted 15 June 2017
Available online 16 June 2017
how cleanup levels may affect the NEB. In this paper, we proposed a framework that combines life cycle
assessment with health risk assessment to derive cleanup levels for remediating contaminated land. This
Handling Editor: Yutao Wang method goes beyond the traditional approach, which focuses on acceptable risk levels to site users. It
takes into account the number of potential receptors, as well as life cycle secondary environmental
Keywords: impacts, in order to select the greenest cleanup level which maximizes the NEB. A case study was
Green remediation conducted using this framework for a school site with Pb contamination. In comparison with the reg-
Sustainable remediation ulatory guidance value of 255 mg/kg applicable at the time of project implementation, the newly selected
Human health risk assessment optimum cleanup level of 800 mg/kg could increase the NEB by 3%, while reducing economic costs by
Life cycle assessment
36%. The study indicated that as the cleanup level became more stringent, the detrimental secondary
Soil contamination
impacts of remedial operations increased exponentially, whilst the benecial primary impact tailed off
with diminishing returns. It also showed that more stringent criteria would lead to the cleanup of more
widespread areas contaminated by diffusive sources rather than point sources. Overall, the study
conrmed our hypothesis that an optimum cleanup level exists when considering both environmental
benet and environmental cost, and the greenest cleanup level could be quantitatively determined by
calculating NEBs with the proposed framework.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction green and sustainable remediation (GSR) concept has been

Soil contamination represents a serious threat to public health,
and soil remediation is needed at numerous locations globally. In
the United States (US), it was estimated that approximately
294,000 contaminated sites require cleanup (USEPA, 2004); in
Europe, the European Environmental Agency (EEA) estimated that
EEA member countries have 2.5 million potentially contaminated
sites (EEA, 2014); in China, a national soil quality survey suggested
that approximately 16.1% of the nation's land was polluted (MEP,
2014). In an effort to accelerate the cleanup of contaminated sites
and to promote sustainable means in remediation operations, the
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: houdeyi@tsinghua.edu.cn (D. Hou).
adopted by various governments and industrial organizations (Hou
and Al-Tabbaa, 2014; Hou et al., 2016b; Prior, 2016). This GSR
movement encourages decision makers to maximize net environ-
mental benet (NEB) when choosing remediation alternatives
(AFCEE, 2010; Ellis and Hadley, 2009; ITRC, 2011b). In doing so, one
must not only reduce the health risk to site users, but also minimize
the environmental costs, including both direct detrimental envi-
ronmental impacts during remediation operation, and indirect
detrimental environmental impacts during material and energy
acquisition and waste disposal associated with remediation.
The choice of cleanup level can have a profound effect on the
health risk reduction benet, as well as the environmental cost.
However, existing literature has rarely examined how choosing
various cleanup levels may affect the NEB of remedial alternatives.
Heavy metal contamination, particularly Pb contamination, can

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.135
0959-6526/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1158 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168
derive from point sources, such as industrial operations, and non-
point sources, such as surface runoff and atmospheric deposition
(Markus and McBratney, 2001). Consequently, Pb contamination is
wide spread, e.g. 1.5% of soil in China is contaminated by Pb (MEP,
2014). Therefore, this type of contaminated land particularly
needs a well informed decision making process when choosing a
cleanup level.
Traditionally, remediation practitioners have used health risk
assessment (HRA) as the main decision-making tool in choosing
cleanup levels (Swartjes, 1999). Risk communication has also been
a main theme of public engagement (Prior et al., 2014). A HRA
identies a chemical hazard, its dose-response relationship, expo-
sure pathways, and subsequently estimates the probability of
adverse health effects in humans who may be exposed to toxic
chemicals in the environmental media (e.g. soil, air, water) (Covello
and Merkhoher, 2013). The HRA method is well established and
robust; however, it has shortcomings by not truly reecting all
sustainability considerations in remediation. HRA does not take
into account the number of people who are exposed, and it does not
take into account adverse health effects associated with a reme-
diation operation's upstream and downstream processes. There is a
lack of quantitative tools to comprehensively account for such
externalities, which could potentially result in undesired conse-
quences if decision makers heavily rely on HRA in deriving cleanup
goals. For instance, to reduce the cancer risk posed to one person
living at a contaminated site from 10
4 to 10
6 may lead to the
excavation, transport, and treatment of tens of thousands of tons of
slightly contaminated soil, which may cause the emission of large
quantities of toxic substances such as heavy metals, benzene,
toluene, volatile organic compounds (VOC), sulfur dioxide, and oil
into air, water, and soil at other places due to raw material and
energy acquisition, equipment acquisition and usage, trans-
portation, construction, and waste disposal. The NEB may be none
or negative in such an extreme case.
Due to concerns in the GSR movement of risk transfer across
geographic boundaries and crossing generations in time span, re-
searchers and practitioners have increasingly utilized life cycle
assessment (LCA) or streamlined versions of LCA (e.g. environ-
mental footprint analysis) as decision-making support tools
(Beames et al., 2015; Hou et al., 2016a). LCA results are usually used
to compare different remediation technologies and to select the
greenest technology for a given remedial objective. However, to
our knowledge, LCA has not been used to select the greenest
cleanup level. In this study, we hypothesized that the cleanup level
established using a traditional HRA method does not necessarily
correspond to the maximum NEB. We proposed that the combi-
nation of LCA and HRA can render a more robust decision making
process for setting cleanup levels than HRA alone. Our literature
research suggests that researchers have combined LCA and risk
assessment in assessing environmental impact in a variety of con-
texts (Harder et al., 2015), such as building energy conservation
(Ayoub et al., 2015), nano-materials production (Barberio et al.,
2014), and mineral waste reuse (Benetto et al., 2007). Such inte-
gration can provide a more holistic assessment results. Due to the
difference in both the context and aims, the framework for incor-
porating LCA and risk assessment in existing literature is not
directly applicable to the combination of LCA and HRA in deriving
cleanup levels. The main objective of this study is to establish a
framework to combine LCA and HRA in deriving soil cleanup levels
that can maximize the NEB of remediation operations, and to test
the framework with a case study. Pb contamination was selected as
the study object because Pb is among the most widely found soil
contaminants, due to its extensive usage in gasoline additives, paint
pigments, and lead acid batteries (Lopez et al., 2015).
2. Background
2.1. Pb contamination, toxicity, and remediation
The toxic effects of Pb include neurotoxicity, developmental
effects, anemia, kidney toxicity, hypertension, and sterility
(McQueen, 2010). Ingestion of Pb within paint chips, dust, soil, and
water may result in elevated blood Pb levels, causing adverse health
effects such as slow cognitive development in children. Lead
poisoning is considered the foremost environmental health threat
to children by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) (Patrick, 2006). Historically, lead was used in many com-
mercial products, such as gasoline, paint, pesticides, ammunition,
shing weights, water pipes and components, cosmetics, ceramics,
and even as a sweetener in food. Which has resulted Pb contami-
nation being prevalent in the environment. The U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development estimated that approximately 38
million homes in the United States contained lead-based paint
(Patrick, 2006). Pb is also a major constituent of concern for haz-
ardous waste sites. For example, in the US Superfund program, Pb
was identied as the most frequently found constituent of concern,
being listed at 1274 out of 1770 sites (ATSDR, 2015). The US phased
out leaded gasoline between 1973 and 1995, and removed Pb from
paint in 1978, which has helped to lower Pb blood level levels
among the US population (Patrick, 2006). However, a large amount
of Pb is still being used, e.g. the US produced 450,000 tons and
consumed 1.5 million tons of Pb in 2003 (Levin et al., 2008), posing
a challenge for pollution prevention and control. In 2011, the eco-
nomic cost associated with child Pb exposure was estimated to be
as much as 1.2% of world GDP (Attina and Trasande, 2013).
Some survey data have indicated that Pb contaminated soil is a
primary source of Pb exposure in certain regions (Levin et al., 2008).
For instance, in 2004, the state of Arizona found that soil was the
most commonly identied proximate exposure source (24%), fol-
lowed by paint (17%) and dust (15%) (Arizona Department of Health
Services, 2005). The remediation of Pb contaminated soil is
important in meeting the CDC's goal of further lowering the blood
level in children. Typically, one of three types of remediation
methods are used to achieve cleanup: 1) excavation and off-site
disposal; 2) on-site containment with a barrier; and 3) in-situ
stabilization to reduce bioavailability. Traditionally the former
two methods are most widely used, but recently researchers are
increasingly interested in bioavailability based remediation
methods (Henry et al., 2015).
Pb contamination is wide spread and remediation is required at
many sites; however, there is no consensus on what the optimum
cleanup level is. An analysis of over 400 worldwide regulatory
guidance values for soil contamination revealed that thresholds for
Pb ranged from 0.78 mg/kg to 3600 mg/kg, and most threshold
values are within the rage of 40 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg (Jennings,
2013). It should be noted that these are regulatory guideline
values, and not necessarily cleanup goals used in remediation. Site
specic cleanup goals are usually also dependent on soil properties
and hydrogeological characteristics. The Toxic Substances Control
Act (TSCA) of the US specied an enforceable standard for Pb in soil
at 400 mg/kg (ITRC, 2005). Most state governments in the US also
use 400 mg/kg as a risk-based screening value for Pb (ITRC, 2005).
California has a voluntary soil Pb cleanup level of 80 mg/kg for
residential areas; and the Washington State has a mandatory soil
cleanup standard of 250 mg/kg for residential areas (Henry et al.,
2015). Due to the existence of wide-ranging regulatory guidance
values for Pb contamination, setting up a suitable cleanup level has
become a challenge. The aim of this study is to illustrate how the
proposed framework may be used to quantitatively select the
greenest cleanup level under a site specic context.
 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168
2.2. Case study description
2.2.1. Site background
The site was located in a major metropolitan area in Southern
California. The area surrounding the site was used for a mixture of
industrial, commercial, and residential uses. Soil beneath the site
was typical of sediment in a ood plain depositional environment:
unconsolidated interbeds of ne-grained sand, non-plastic silt, and
clay. Due to historical industrial operations of iron and steel casting/
foundries the site soil had been contaminated by a variety of
organic pollutants and heavy metals. The site was being redevel-
oped to build a high school, thus requiring site cleanup. This study
focused solely on the areas of Pb contamination. More information
about the site is included in the Supporting Information. The pre-
sent study has extensively used existent project data from the State
of California (http://www.envirostor.dtsc.ca.gov/), however, it
should be noted that the HRA and LCA presented are hypothetical
and purely for scientic research purposes, thus the analysis pre-
sented here does not reect the actual decision making process.
2.2.2. Remediation technology
A variety of remediation technologies may be used to deal with
Pb contaminated soils. Containment technologies such as asphalt
capping may be combined with institutional controls to reduce
human health exposure. Solidication/stabilization (S/S) may be
used to reduce the mobility of lead contaminants (Yin et al., 2006).
Soil washing can be used to remove lead contaminants from the
coarse fraction of the soil (Dermont et al., 2008). Excavation and off-
site disposal can be used to completely remove the contaminants
from the site. Based on a balanced review of effectiveness, imple-
mentability, cost, and several other criteria, it was considered
appropriate to use a combination of excavation, S/S of hazardous
waste exceeding leaching threshold criteria, and off-site disposal.
Soils containing Pb concentrations above the cleanup level were
excavated. After excavation, conrmation samples were collected at
the bottom and sides of each excavation area to verify the complete
removal of contaminated soil. The excavated soil was stockpiled,
sampled, and analyzed for waste characterization. For the soils that
were characterized as hazardous waste, impacted soil was hauled
to an out-of-state hazardous waste landll, where S/S was con-
ducted by adding Portland cement to reduce the leaching potential.
Non-hazardous soils were transported to a local sanitary landll for
disposal. The excavated areas would be backlled with overburden
soil and imported clean ll materials.
2.2.3. Post-remediation site use and simulated cleanup level
The site was being redeveloped to build a high school. The
proposed footprint of the site was classied into four types: Types
A, B, C, and D (see Table 1) which reects descending health risk.
Exposure scenarios and exposure parameters for each type of land
use are summarized in Table 1 and Fig. 1. Nine scenarios were
simulated corresponding to nine different cleanup level. 50 mg/kg,
100 mg/kg, and 400 mg/kg were selected as they had previously
been used by a number of regulatory agencies (Jennings, 2013). The
value of 255 mg/kg was selected because it was the applicable
regulatory guidance value at the time of project implementation at
this specic site. The remaining cleanup levels (800, 1500, 3000,
6000, and 9000 mg/kg) were selected in order to establish incre-
mental intervals to allow for an assessment of trends and inter-
polation if necessary.
1159
Table 1
Classication of land use types and exposure scenarios at the school site.
Type of land use Exposure scenarios
Type A: Football/soccer eld; softball/ Bare soil accessible. Exposure occurs
baseball eld; grassland; playground during daily activities.
(unpaved)
Type B: Roadside tree planting; Exposure during re-planting, or by
landscape around buildings occasional student play activity
Type C: Buildings Ground paved. Exposure only occurs
during intrusive/soil disturbing
construction work. Heavy construction
initially, rarely maintenance involving
intrusive work
Type D: Access road; Parking lot; tennis Similar to Type C, but light construction
court; playground (paved); lunch work initially, regular maintenance
shelter involving intrusive work
3. Methods
3.1. General framework
HRA is a well-established method that is widely used to derive
cleanup level for soil contamination. For contaminated sites where
humans are the most sensitive receptor and human health is the
primary remediation driver, HRA is used to derive the risk that site
users will develop cancer or other adverse noncancerous health
effects from site-related exposures. The contaminant concentration
corresponding to an acceptable risk level is then established as the
cleanup level. For carcinogens, the acceptable risk level may span
two orders of magnitude (i.e., 10
4 to 10
6) as set forth in US law,
posing a challenge to decision makers within regulatory agencies.
Where regulators intend to render more stringent environmental
protection (due to either a commitment to strengthen environ-
mental protection or a lack of expertise in making informed de-
cisions), an arbitrary blinded threshold of 10
6 cancer risk may be
used. LCA is another decision making support tool that has been
increasingly used in the remediation eld. Remediation LCA has
often been used to estimate the cradle-to-grave environmental
impact of remediation operations for a given remediation scenario
and a pre-determined cleanup level. The quantication results are
then used to compare different remediation technologies and rank
their sustainability score.
In order to combine HRA with LCA to choose optimum cleanup
levels, we proposed a new framework (see Fig. 2). In this frame-
work, a set of possible cleanup levels are rst selected. The selection
of possible cleanup levels would be site specic, with the following
considerations being taken into account: 1) the lowest cleanup
level should be no less than background level; 2) the range should
be moderate, e.g. approximately 2 orders of magnitude and ideally
centered around a regulatory guideline value. Then two parallel
series of tasks are conducted. On the one hand, for each specic
cleanup level, the post-remediation land use scenarios are classi-
ed, corresponding residual levels of contaminant for each area are
determined, exposure risk for each type of land use is estimated,
and nally the health benet associated with enforcing the cleanup
level is calculated. On the other hand, for each specic cleanup
level, potential remedial technologies are screened and remedial
alternatives are assessed, the most suitable remedial alternative is
selected and detailed designs are conducted, life cycle inventory is
conducted based on design parameters, and nally the life cycle
impact associated with enforcing the cleanup level is calculated.
After these two parallel lines of tasks are completed, the results are
combined using an appropriate weighting strategy. The combina-
tion renders a net environmental benet (NEB) for each cleanup
level. The cleanup level corresponding to the maximum
1160 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168

Fig. 1. Exposure scenarios for students, school staff, and construction workers.

receptors that are exposed to the contaminated soil (or residual

contaminants) at the site; Ti is the duration of ith type receptors
with exposure risk within the study time horizon; R0,i is the ith type
receptor's exposure risk without cleanup efforts; and Ri is the ith
type receptor's exposure risk after cleanup.
The net environmental benet (NEB) is estimated using the
following equation:

EC
NEB EB
(2)
f

where EC is the environmental cost derived by life cycle impact

assessment (LCIA), and f is a weighting factor. For the default sce-
nario in the present study, the local health benet is given a
weighting factor of 5, implying that local environmental impacts
have 5 times the importance of the regional to global environ-
mental impacts. A sensitivity analysis was conducted on the
weighting factor to render more implications of the chosen f value.
Further detail about the NEB calculation and sensitivity analysis is
included in Supporting Information.

3.2. Risk assessment method

For non-carcinogenic toxic substances, a reference dose (RfD)

value is used to estimate the daily oral exposure that is likely to
result in an appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime.
For carcinogenic substances, a chronic oral slope factor (CSF) is used
to estimate the probability of an individual developing cancer from
oral exposure to contaminant levels over a lifetime. However, there
Fig. 2. General framework for combining LCA and HRA to select cleanup level.
is no consensus RfD or CSF for Pb (USEPA, 2015). The USEPA
developed two blood-lead models: the Integrated Exposure Uptake
Biokinetic (IEUBK) model to estimate risks for children in the age
environmental benet is then considered the greenest cleanup group 1e7 (USEPA, 1994), and the Adult Lead Methodology (ALM)
level. model for adults (USEPA, 2009). Because the study site was to be
The environmental benet is estimated using the following used as a high school and site users would consist of students
equation: typically 14e18 years of age and adult staff, the ALM model was
used. Input parameters are shown in Table 2. The risk of Pb expo-
X  
EB Ni Ti R0;i
Ri (1) sure was estimated by ALM and expressed as the possibility of a
i receptor having blood Pb levels exceeding the target blood Pb level.
More information about the risk assessment method is included in
where EB is the environmental benet associated with cleaning-up Supporting Information.
the contaminated soil; Ni is the average number of ith type The ALM model requires the input of an exposure soil Pb
 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168 1161

Table 2 order to provide a basis to evaluate the NEB of remediation. The LCA
Input parameters for ALM blood-lead model and risk impact calculation. boundary was from cradle to grave, including raw material and
Parameter Value Source and Rationale energy acquisition, equipment acquisition and usage, trans-
Fetal/maternal PbB 1.0 Assumes the target blood Pb level is
portation, construction, and waste disposal. The functional unit was
ratio applicable to all adolescents and adults the removal and treatment of Pb contaminated soil to meet the nine
at school, rather than only the fetus of cleanup level used. The timeframe assumed for the LCA was 100
pregnant woman years, consistent with the timeframe for health risk impact quan-
Biokinetic Slope Factor 0.4 ALM model default value (USEPA, 2003)
tication as discussed in Section 3.2. Life cycle inventory data in this
Geometric standard 1.7 Applicable to a more homogeneous
deviation blood Pb population (USEPA, 2016) study were collected from project reports, published literature, and
Baseline blood Pb 0.7 mg/dL ALM model default value (USEPA, 2016) pertaining industrial consultants, contractors, and equipment
Soil ingestion rate e 100 mg/d Central tendency estimate (USEPA, vendors. Inventory data for background systems (e.g. upstream and
school student 2011)
downstream processes) were based on the ecoinvent life cycle unit
Soil ingestion rate e 50 mg/d Central tendency estimate (USEPA,
school staff 2011)
process database version 3.1 (Weidema et al., 2013). Where mate-
Soil ingestion rate 330 mg/d California Department of Toxic rial ow data was not available, economic input-output data were
Substances Control default exposure used based a hybrid LCA approach (Hou et al., 2014). This LCA study
econstruction
factor (DTSC, 2014) was conducted using SimaPro 8.0 LCA software (PReConsultants,
workers
Absorption fraction 0.12 Based on an absorption fraction for 2014). The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) was conducted us-
soluble Pb of 0.20 and a relative ing the ReCiPe impact assessment method (Goedkoop et al., 2013).
bioavailability of 0.6 (USEPA, 2003) ReCiPe has both midpoint and endpoint indicators. We used the
Exposure frequency 180 d/y Based on 5-day school week and 36-
midpoint method as a basis to determine the weighting factor for
week school year
Averaging time 365 d/y
the health impact assessment results. We then used the default
Target blood Pb level 5 mg/dL Reference level established by Centers ReCiPe endpoint method, hierarchist version, to integrate results
for Disease Control and Prevention for various impact categories to render a single nal score, thus
(CDC) for children allowing for a comparison with the standardized risk assessment
Number of receptors 1500 students, 100 staff, 20 construction workers
results. More information about LCA inventory data and assump-
(approximate number based on school size)
Cumulative exposure 100 years for students and staff, 10 years for tions is included in Supporting Information.
years construction workers (assume the school is
continuously in use during the study period, and 4. Results and discussion
construction work occurs every one year out of ten
years)
Weighting factor Use blood level to estimate mild mental retardation
4.1. Effect of cleanup level on remediation and use scenarios
rate; and subsequently estimate disability-adjusted
life year (DALY) and ReCiPe points (Ezzati et al., The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
2003) (Fewtrell et al., 2004) Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention
(ACCLPP) have suggested that blood Pb levels as low as 10 mg/dL can
result in IQ decits and detrimental effects in attention related
concentration. Because the study site consisted of multiple types of behavior and academic achievement (ACCLPP, 2012). USEPA has
land use, and Pb concentrations varied across the site, the exposure summarized the evidence indicating any increase in blood-lead
soil Pb concentration was calculated for two different receptors concentrations over background levels is associated with IQ de-
with potential exposure to four different land uses (see Table 2). cits in children (USEPA, 2013). There is a now a growing body of
For school students and staff, the following equation was used: scientic evidence that the cleanup of Pb contamination needs to
be applied to the most stringent criteria possible, in order to protect
Ca Aa Wa Cb Ab Wb site users against this issue. Fig. 3 shows that for the study site, the
C (3)
Aa Wa Ab Wb residual Pb concentration generally decreased as the cleanup level
became more stringent (right to left on the x-axis). Therefore, a
where C is the exposure soil Pb concentration; Ca and Cb are average greater level of health protection to site users was achieved by
soil Pb concentrations for Type A and Type B soil; Aa (20,312 m2) lowering the Pb cleanup level to more stringent levels. However,
and Ab (3840 m2) are total areas for Type A and Type B type land diminishing returns in the Pb residual concentrations are observed
uses; Wa (1) and Wb (0.2) are weighting factors to denote the fre- as the cleanup level reduces to the most stringent levels. It should
quency that site users may enter these areas. be noted that the latent extent of Pb contamination varied among
For construction workers, the following equation was used: different types of land uses. For instance, for the areas designated
for Type C land use, there was no soil lead concentration higher
Cc Ac Wc Cd Ad Wd
C (4) than 6000 mg/kg; consequently, for cleanup levels of both
Ac Wc Ad Wd
6000 mg/kg and 9000 mg/kg, the residual lead concentration
would be equal to the initial state.
where C is the exposure soil Pb concentration; Cc and Cd are average
However, cleanup level can also have a signicant effect on the
soil Pb concentrations for Type C and Type D soil; Ac (9956 m2) and
amount of remediation work required at a site. For the study site,
Ad (31,760 m2) are total areas for Type C and Type D type land uses;
based on gathered site investigation data, Fig. 4(a) shows that the
Wc (1) and Wd (0.2) are weighting factors to denote the work load
delineated area of contaminated soil, the volume of contaminated
associated with the two different types of land uses.
soil, and the volume of overburden (i.e. clean soil excavation
required to remove contaminated soil) rapidly increased as the
3.3. Life cycle assessment method cleanup level became more stringent. The rapid increase in treat-
ment volume is further illustrated by a semi-log plot of the data in
The present LCA was conducted in accordance with ISO 14040 Fig. 4(b) which shows that the volume of contaminated soil
and ISO 14044 (ISO, 2006a, b). The goal of the LCA was to quantify increased at a faster than an exponential rate. The rapid increase in
the life cycle impacts of remediation activities at the study site, in treatment volume with increasingly stringent criteria is important
1162 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168

Fig. 3. Effect of cleanup level on residual contamination.

Fig. 4. Effect of cleanup level on the level of remediation efforts: (a) with y axis expressed in linear scale; (b) with y axis expressed in log scale.

because it implies that the associated supplemental costs and
secondary environmental emissions will increase very rapidly, in
contrast to the diminishing returns seen in Pb residual concentra-
tion as discussed above. In order to achieve a high level of protec-
tion against Pb exposure as advocated by ACCLPP, it is important to
nd an optimum criterion for cleanup, to balance the health benet
of cleanup and the economic and environmental burden of the
remediation operations.
A close look at the spatial distribution of contaminated soil gives
further insight. Fig. 5 shows that when the cleanup level was higher
(less stringent), a greater percentage of the delineated contami-
nated soil volume was located in deeper locations compared to
when the cleanup level was lower (more stringent), for which most
contamination was located at the near surface. This suggests that
the more serious contamination was probably caused by point
sources and tended to migrate to deeper locations; while slight to
moderate contamination, likely caused by diffusive sources, tended
to reside near the surface. Therefore, the enforcement of lower
more stringent cleanup levels may in effect shift resources from
localized point source cleanup to the remediation of more wide
spread contamination from non-point emission.
4.2. Exposure risk and human health impact
Exposure risk determines the urgency and health benet of
intervention action (Swartjes, 1999). Fig. 6 shows the remaining
exposure risk when various levels of cleanup level were enforced.
When no remedial action was undertaken, the possibility of ex-
ceedance was highest for students (>18%); the possibility of ex-
ceedance was lower for school staff (3%); and the possibility of
 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168 1163

Fig. 5. Distribution of impacted soils to be removed under various cleanup level: (a) total contaminated soil volume in m3; (b) percentage of total contaminated soil.

Fig. 6. Probability that a receptor's blood-lead level will exceed 5 mg/dL following exposure to the site post-remediation, as a factor of the cleanup concentration used (Note: NA
corresponds to the scenario where no cleanup action is taken).

exceedance for construction workers was also lower (2%). For stu- Pb ranged from 10.5% to 47.9% (Pascaud et al., 2014).
dents and staff, the health risk substantially reduced by approxi-
mately 90% even when the least stringent cleanup level of
4.3. Life cycle assessment results
9000 mg/kg was used. When cleanup levels became more strin-
gent, the reduction in probability of exceedance between each
Table 3 lists the amount of Pb removed from the site, and the
criterion assessed becomes much less signicant. For instance, for
amount of contaminants released into air, water, and soil over the
school students, when cleanup level is halved from 3000 mg/kg to
entire life cycle, including upstream and downstream processes.
1500 mg/kg, the associated health risk has a 48% reduction; but
Further results are also shown in Fig. 7 and included in Supporting
when the cleanup level is halved from 100 mg/kg to 50 mg/kg, the
Information. As can be seen, remediation activities can remove a
health risk only has a 15% reduction. It should be noted that the
large amounts of Pb contamination from the site, ranging from
default bioavailability of 60% for lead in soil was used in the ALM
1765 kg to 4034 kg, corresponding to cleanup levels of 9000 mg/kg
(see Table 2). This assumption may have overestimated exposure to
to 50 mg/kg, respectively. Remediation activities also led to the
lead in our assessment. For example, a previous study on Pb
release of various pollutant emissions. The amount of Pb released
contaminated soil at a soccer eld indicated that bioavailability of
was minimal, ranging from 0.3 kg to 3.6 kg. However, it should be
1164 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168

Fig. 7. Life cycle assessment results.

noted that this estimate was based on the assumption that the
remediation activities were conducted with robust dust controls
and a storm water pollution prevention plan (SWPPP). If these dust
controls and SWPPP measures were not properly conducted, a
signicantly higher amount of Pb could be released into the envi-
ronment. Moreover, because Pb in dust and surcial soil is more
accessible than Pb in bulk soil; the health risk posed would be
signicant. A historical lesson is the United Kingdom's Corby case,
where dust originating from remediation of a steelworks resulted
in exposure of pregnant women and consequently children with
birth defects (Lee, 2009), demonstrating the importance of
mitigating secondary pollution during remediation operations.
Table 3 also shows that a signicant amount of non-pertaining
pollutants can be released due to remediation operations. For
instance, up to 17.8 kg of VOCs, 949.2 kg of sulfur dioxide, and
317.9 kg of oil were released when the most stringent cleanup level
was used. Such pollutant emission represents a signicant envi-
ronmental cost associated with remediation operation. Moreover, it
shows that when the cleanup level decreased from 100 mg/kg to
50 mg/kg, the additional amount of Pb removed from the
contaminated soil was only 88 kg, while the additional amount of
sulfur dioxide and oil emission was 171 kg and 68 kg, respectively.

Table 3
Life cycle inventory results for selected types of pollutants.

Cleanup level (mg/kg) Pb Removal (kg) Life Cycle Emissions

Pb (kg) benzene (kg) toluene (kg) VOC (kg) sulfur dioxide (kg) oil (kg)

50 4034 3.6 6.2 3.8 17.8 949.2 317.9

100 3946 2.8 5.0 3.0 14.3 778.4 250.4
255 3738 1.9 3.5 2.0 10.2 556.6 162.6
400 3410 1.4 2.5 1.4 8.5 414.0 106.3
800 2950 0.9 1.8 0.9 6.1 307.2 64.0
1500 2594 0.7 1.4 0.7 5.1 261.1 45.4
3000 2281 0.6 1.3 0.6 4.4 241.8 37.9
6000 2123 0.5 1.0 0.5 3.5 188.0 29.6
9000 1765 0.3 0.6 0.3 2.1 112.6 17.8

Note: only a few key pollutants are shown in the table; emissions include the total amount released to air, water, and soil.
 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168
In other words, the effort associated with strengthening the
cleanup level resulted in a greater total mass of non-Pb key
pollutant emissions into the environment than the additional Pb
removed from the soil.
The comparison above is solely based on the mass of various
contaminants, which is not straightforward to interpret because of
differing toxicity levels and exposure risk. Fig. 6 presents the LCIA
results, which combines the consumption of various resources and
the emission of various pollutants into one single indicator under
each impact category, thus allowing a more straightforward inter-
pretation. As can be seen, when the cleanup level was relatively
high (less stringent), ll material acquisition and transport was the
largest contributor for the categories of human toxicity and urban
land occupation; transport of non-hazardous waste was the largest
or near largest contributor for the categories of climate change,
photochemical oxidant formation, and fossil fuel depletion, and
landlling was the largest contributor for particulate matter for-
mation. When the cleanup level became more stringent, transport
of hazardous waste became the dominant contributor for nearly all
impact categories, with the exception of urban land occupation,
for which ll material acquisition and transport remained the
largest contributor. These results imply that the major contributor
of life cycle environmental impact changes as cleanup levels
change. Therefore, when practitioners use qualitative methods to
conduct sustainability assessments, as suggested in some literature
(Cappuyns, 2013; EURODEMO, 2007), they must be careful in not
only considering site conditions but also the cleanup level when
drawing information from published LCA studies.
Life cycle assessment results can be used to identify important
environmental issues (hot spots) and to encourage technological
innovation. For instance, energy consumption was identied as the
major contributor of life cycle impact in thermal desorption
(Lemming et al., 2010), and as such, researchers have developed
various technologies to lower thermal desorption temperature (Ma
et al., 2014, 2015). Consequently such innovation can signicantly
reduce the environmental cost of remediation (Hou et al., 2016a).
As discussed above, for the less stringent cleanup of Pb contami-
nated soil, environmental hot spots seem to be associated with ll
material acquisition/transport and non-hazardous waste transport
and landlling. To mitigate environmental impact under such
remedial scenarios, the most effective approach would likely
involve the use of on-site technologies, either in-situ treatment like
stabilization with phosphate (Hettiarachchi et al., 2001), or removal
and on-site treatment for reuse, for example by using soil washing
technology (Neilson et al., 2003). When the cleanup level is more
stringent, the environmental hot spot is mainly associated with the
transport of hazardous waste. To mitigate environmental impacts
under these scenarios, the most effective approach may involve
trying to stabilize/solidify the waste on-site and then transport it to
a local sanitary landll, rather than a hazardous waste landll. In
the present study, on-site S/S was not suitable because California
hazardous waste regulations have both a leaching threshold (STLC:
5 mg/L), and a total concentration threshold (TTLC: 1000 mg/kg). As
the US federal regulation only contains a leaching threshold (TCLP:
5 mg/L), on-site S/S may be chosen to mitigate the life cycle envi-
ronmental impact in other US states. Furthermore, we also postu-
late that the above ndings can be used by policy makers who are
tasked to make new regulations or revise existing regulations. For
instance, Chinese government bodies from a national level to a local
level are currently forming regulatory standards pertaining to soil
pollution prevention and remediation. Some of these policy makers
are realizing the importance of GSR and taking into account sec-
ondary impacts associated with remediation. However, because
literature in this research area remains limited, they have difculty
in directly adopting a new methodology. Nevertheless, we believe
1165
more research in this direction will be benecial in enabling and
encouraging policy makers to design better regulations and policy
instruments which can optimize the allocation of resources and,
therefore, maximize the NEB from a life cycle perspective.
4.4. Net environmental benet
The so-called net environmental benet (NEB) has been a core
element of green remediation, or sustainable remediation, or
green and sustainable remediation (GSR), as dened by various
government agencies and professional organizations. Some site
owners, like the US Air Force Center for Engineering and the
Environment (AFCEE) deliberately include GSR language, including
NEB in their performance based contracts (ITRC, 2011a). However,
our literature review has revealed no published study which
directly quanties NEB. Most existing literature has used indirect
and/or qualitative methods to establish strategies to maximize
NEB. The most popular method is to use LCA to estimate the life
cycle environmental cost, and use various strategies to minimize
this cost. Given that a remedial objective is xed (i.e. a pre-
determined cleanup level), this indirect approach can provide a
robust solution to maximize NEB. However, if a remedial objective
becomes part of the question (e.g. to select the greenest cleanup
level), then this indirect method is no longer suitable.
To overcome this obstacle in promoting GSR, the present study
established a systematic method to calculate the NEB (see Section
2.1). As Fig. 8 shows, the health impact of residual contamination
increased as the cleanup level increased (became less stringent),
and the life cycle environmental impact of remediation decreased
as the cleanup level increased; consequently, the NEB displayed a
non-linear concave down relationship with cleanup level. The NEB
increased when cleanup level increased from 50 mg/kg to 800 mg/
kg; and then NEB decreased when the cleanup level increased from
800 mg/kg to 9000 mg/kg. In other words, there is an optimum
cleanup level (i.e. 800 mg/kg) under the specic context of the
studied site, which we call the greenest cleanup level. This cleanup
level is considered to align better with life cycle aware risk
assessment (Kuczenski et al., 2010).
As discussed earlier, the weighting of local environmental
benet (i.e. HRA results) versus global environmental cost (i.e. LCA
results) may be critical. To test this hypothesis, we tested a variety
of weighting factors for HRA:LCA (i.e. the f value used in equation
(2)), ranging from 1 to 256. The results indicated that when f was 1
or 2, the greenest cleanup level was 6000 mg/kg; when f was 3 or
4, it was 1500 mg/kg; when f was in the range of 5e15, it was
800 mg/kg; when f was in the range of 16e44, it was 400 mg/kg;
when f was in the range of 45e137, it was 255 mg/kg; when f was in
the range of 138e255, it was 100 mg/kg; and when f was 256 or
above, it was 50 mg/kg (see Fig. 9). In the present study, we
assumed a weighting factor of 5. However, in practice we suggest
that the weighting factor should be determined based on stake-
holder engagement. For an area with no nearby community
affected, or the pertaining stakeholders have strong environmental
sentiment for the wider society, a lower weighting factor may be
chosen. The stakeholder may feel environmental suffering else-
where is as important as environmental deterioration in the local
area, consequently they may choose the weighting factor to be 1. In
addition to the sensitivity of the f value weighting factor, the pre-
sent study also examined the sensitivity of important site specic
parameters including the transportation distance to non-hazardous
landll and distance to the hazardous waste landll. It was found
that while these parameters are critical in determining the life cycle
environmental cost, it has little effect on the relative ranking of net
environmental benet under various cleanup levels.
1166 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168

Fig. 8. Net environmental benet of Pb remediation under various levels of cleanup level (Note: NA corresponds to the scenario where no cleanup action is taken).

Fig. 9. Sensitivity of net environmental benet of Pb remediation to weighting factor (number in each cell represents [NEB-NEBmin]/[NEBmax-NEBmin]).

4.5. General evaluation of the framework
HRA and LCA each focus on different aspects of a system, of-
fering complementary roles in decision making (Barberio et al.,
2014). For example, in contaminated land remediation, adopting
more stringent criteria provides better health protection for site
users at the contaminated site, but it increases life cycle heath
impact at other places and at other times. Therefore, researchers
and regulatory advisors are calling for the integration of risk
assessment with greater sustainability consideration (Abt et al.,
2010; National Research Council, 2011). It is clear that cleanup
level can affect the NEB of remediation operations; however, re-
searchers have rarely examined this spectrum, which can hinder
the development and adoption of GSR. The proposed framework
renders a tool for quantitatively selecting the greenest cleanup
level, thus making GSR more practical.
The framework proposed in this study lays out a general pro-
cedure for deriving cleanup levels based on the quantication of
NEB of remediation alternatives. Remediation practitioners need to
identify a set of potential cleanup levels in the rst place. The nal
results of the evaluation showed a concave shaped relationship
between NEB and cleanup level, suggesting that the range of
cleanup levels evaluated in the assessment was appropriate. The
actual maximum NEB is probably slightly higher or lower than
800 mg/kg. One could rene the optimum cleanup level by con-
ducting iterative analysis of additional cleanup levels around
800 mg/kg. This additional step is ignored in this study because this
research study is mainly to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
framework rather than pinpoint a cleanup level for this specic
project.
The framework requires the selection of the most suitable
remedial technology for each cleanup level. In the case study, we
found that excavation and off-site disposal was consistently the
most suitable remedial technology with slight differences in off-site
treatment. However, when applying this framework to other cases,
it is likely that cleanup level could completely change the suitable
remediation technology.
We argue that deriving appropriate cleanup levels for wide-
spread contamination, as observed in China, particularly needs a
new paradigm based on GSR principals. The study by Jennings
showed that regulatory guidance values for Pb contaminated soil
span across four orders of magnitude (Jennings, 2013). Selecting a
cleanup level from such a wide range, without the assistance of a
holistic and quantitative tool, can be very challenging. Applying the
present framework requires a relatively high level of labor input, as
both HRA and LCA assess a large number of different scenarios;
 D. Hou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 162 (2017) 1157e1168
nevertheless, the economic and environmental resources that are
potentially saved from such an effort can far exceed the additional
cost of the analysis. In the present case study, using the default
cleanup level of 255 mg/kg corresponds to a life cycle remediation
cost of $2.2 million. If the greenest cleanup level found in this
study (800 mg/kg) was used, it would reduce the life cycle reme-
diation cost to $1.4 million, rendering a 36% cost saving. Therefore,
conducting such analysis on a project level can be signicantly
benecial. Moreover, if such an analysis is conducted from a policy
making perspective, by considering a wide range of different site
scenario models for general application, the benet of conducting
such an assessment following the proposed framework could be
very signicant overall.
5. Conclusion
This study proposed a framework to derive cleanup level and
identied an optimum cleanup level for Pb contaminated soil under
a specic site context, based on the combination of human health
risk assessment and life cycle assessment. In comparison with the
regulatory value enforced at the time of project implementation,
the newly derived cleanup level could reduce the life cycle reme-
diation cost by 36%, while increasing the NEB by 3%. The study
suggests that cleanup level and/or regulatory guidance values that
are solely based on human health risk assessment can deviate
signicantly from an optimum choice. This is because HRA does not
take into account secondary impact across geographic boundaries
and over the entire life cycle of remediation operations (i.e. from
cradle to grave). The HRA may be the most suitable tool from the
perspective of local receptors; however, this may be at a cost of
environmental sufferance at other places and other times. From the
society's perspective, a more holistic method is required in deriving
cleanup level, in order to balance the wellbeing of local residents
and that of people elsewhere.
While this study veried the hypothesis that the greenest
cleanup level does exist when considering the NEB of remediation
operation, there is no doubt that there are many limitations asso-
ciated with the study. One challenge is that LCA is based on a global
model and has relatively low resolution and more uncertainties
while HRA is based on a local model and has relatively high reso-
lution and more accuracy. Therefore, the weighting and combina-
tion of these two results would need stakeholder buy-in when this
approach is used in actual project design and implementation.
Moreover, the proposed method identies an optimum value from
pre-dened discrete numbers rather than continuous values. In
order to identify the true optimum, it requires more rened prob-
ability analysis of the distribution of the selected values. In addi-
tion, the present study is based on the analysis of a single
contaminant. When multiple contaminants comingle, the analysis
would be far more complex, and would require mathematical
optimization in order to avoid a tremendous amount of different
scenarios for assessment. We suggest this as a future research di-
rection to further develop the concept presented in this study.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the funding support from the Thou-
sand Talents Program of the Chinese government and Tsinghua
University.
List of abbreviations
ALM Adult Lead Methodology
ACCLPP Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning
Prevention
1167
AFCEE Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment
CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CSF chronic oral slope factor
DALY disability-adjusted life year
EEA European Environmental Agency
GSR green and sustainable remediation
HRA health risk assessment
LCA life cycle assessment
LCIA life cycle impact assessment
NEB net environmental benet
RfD reference dose
S/S solidication/stabilization
SWPPP storm water pollution and prevention control
TSCA Toxic Substances Control Act
VOCs volatile organic compounds
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.06.135.
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