By the end of the 1970s contaminated sites had emerged as one of the most complex and urgent
environmental issues affecting industrialized countries. The authors show that small and
prosperous Switzerland is no exception to the pervasive problem of sites contamination the
legacy of past practices in waste management having left some 38 000 contaminated sites
throughout the country. This book outlines the problem offering evidence that open and
polycentric environmental decision-making that includes civil society actors is valuable. They
propose an understanding of environmental management of contaminated sites as a political
process in which institutions frame interactions between strategic actors pursuing sometimes
conflicting interests.In the opening chapter the authors describe the influences of politics
and the power relationships between actors involved in decision-making in contaminated sites
management which they term a wicked problem. Chapter Two offersa theoretical framework for
understanding institutions and the environmental management of contaminated sites. The next
five chapters present a detailed case study on environmental management and contaminated sites
in Switzerland focused on the Bonfol Chemical Landfill. The study and analysis covers the
establishment of the landfill under the first generation of environmental regulations its
closure and early remediation efforts and the gambling on the remediation objectives methods
and funding in the first decade of the 21st Century.The concluding chapter discusses the
question of whether the strength of environmental regulations and the type of interactions
between public private and civil society actors can explain the environmental choices in
contaminated sites management. Drawing lessons from research the authors debate the value of
institutional flexibility for dealing with environmental issues such as contaminated sites.
