DéMETer

The soils of Martinique and Guadeloupe are contaminated by chlordecone (CLD), an organochlorine pesticide used in the French West Indies until 1993 to control the banana weevil. Despite a cessation of use for almost 30 years, soil still represents a continuous source of CLD that can be transferred to other environmental compartments such as surface and groundwater. This impact on ecosystems has environmental but also health consequences. Reducing soil contamination by CLD is therefore a major challenge in order to reduce exposure and, consequently, reduce the impacts on health and the environment. The objective of DéMETer is to implement an efficient, economically viable, operational and acceptable method for soil treatment with regard to CLD and its degradation products. If there are several promising remediation solutions, such as those combining chemical reduction and phytoremediation, their operational implementation requires resolving technical and societal obstacles. These are the objectives of DéMETer: 1) optimize remediation processes regarding both efficiency and cost, 2) ensure that these remediation processes are socially acceptable and acquired by the stakeholders, and 3) validate the change of scale by implementing demonstrators on site and evaluating the technical and economic constraints for their eventual implementation on a very large scale. The later (obj 4) also includes ensuring the transferability of this integrated approach to similar contexts, i.e., Guadeloupe. To achieve these objectives, DéMETer, which relies on a transdisciplinary consortium, answers the challenges of axis 1 (prevention of exposure) and axis 2 (Science and society) of the call for projects and responds to several expected outcomes of the Chlordecone IV plan.