Clean Earth’s Growth Strategies Featured in Philadelphia Business Journal

While some companies avoid contaminated land at all costs, Clean Earth’s business depends upon it.

And business opportunities abound; sluggish economy not withstanding.

“We live in an area that has a lot of historic contamination.”  said Bill Massa, Clean Earth’s CEO.  The 18-year-old Montgomery County company is one of the country’s largest processors of contaminated soil, dredge, sediments and other nonhazardous and hazardous materials.

Clean Earth also recycles, or beneficially reuses about 98 percent of the material it processes.

By reusing the material it collects, Massa said, the Mongomery Country company is able to make the removal process more affordable for developers of land impaired by chemical spills or other types of contamination.

“Instead of [the dirt] being dumped in a landfill or in the ocean, which is what was being done not too many years ago, we bring it to one of our facilities where it is cleaned using various types of technology,” he said. “Then we find a new home for the material.”

That new home could be as fill to raise the grading level for a highway project, to cap a landfill, or regrade a quarry.

Contaminated soil processed by Clean Earth was used to cover a closed landfill near Jersey City, N.J., where the Liberty National Golf Course was built overlooking the New York skyline.  Closer to home, processed soil from Clean Earth was used at the brownfield site in Chester that is now home to Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack.

The company also eliminates the need for developers to ship in clean dirt from another site.  “It doesn’t make sense to scar the environment in one place to benefit another,” Massa said.

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September 17, 2009 at 3:52 pm | News | No comment

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