Novel eco-friendly mitigation strategies for managing oil spills and municipal waste dump site leachates

Abstract

Despite the recent preference for renewable energy due to environmental and climate-related gains, the global demand for liquid petroleum has not declined. Quite a number of oil spill events are being reported regularly. Therefore, concerted efforts at ensuring the drastic minimization of associated environmental and health consequences are urgently required. In order to return an oil-polluted environment to its prepolluted state and to comply with local and international regulations, ecofriendly methods are being sought for oil spill management. As the number of humans on Earth continues to rise, the volume of municipal waste generated per human is increasing proportionately that makes eco-friendly mitigation strategies relevant and important to save the planet. Therefore, this chapter will briefly review the basic mechanisms and health and environmental impacts that tag spilled crude oil and municipal waste leachates as important environmental pollutants. Relatively recent studies on novel eco-friendly techniques designed to optimize the mitigation of oil spills and municipal waste leachates will be explored. In addition, novel strategies of extracting metals from leachates will be examined. This chapter provides both theoretical and practical eco-friendly solutions/recommendations to optimize the management of oil spills and dumpsite waste leachates, which require urgent global attention most especially in developing countries.