Storage Facilities Reclamation Using Dredged Sediments from Waterways: Growing Media Formulation for Plants According to E.U ECOLABEL Framework

To maintain their economic activities, inland ports, rivers, and canals have to be dredged. In the French legislation, dredged sediments have to be managed onshore when their environmental characteristics, i.e., trace elements and organic concentrations, are of major concern. In this case, dredged sediments are considered as waste and their reuse as secondary aggregates is allowed under some conditions. These conditions include checking the sediment is not hazardous and the new product will not cause environmental and sanitary risks. In this context, the European Union Ecolabel framework established environmental, technical, and economic criteria for waste reuse as growing media for plants. In this research, dredged sediments from French waterways were reused as aggregates in the preparation of plant growing media according to the rules of E.U ECOLABEL. Given their organic matter and nutrient contents, dredged sediments are relevant for manufacturing this kind of products. The addition of composted green waste residues followed by sufficient tillage time allowed obtaining growing media in compliance with ecolabel for storage facilities reclamation. Also, besides the agronomic parameters, environmental characteristics of final products were studied through leaching tests in order to check their conformity.