Environmental concerns associated with explosives (HMX, TNT, and RDX), heavy metals and metalloids from shooting range soils: Prevailing issues, leading management practices, and future perspectives

Abstract Military firing or shooting ranges exhibit the most significant environmental concern of the current era. The copresence of diverse types of organic (TNT, RDX, and HMX) and inorganic pollutants (Pb, Cu, Cd, Ni, Cr, Zn, As, and Sb) can cause endless damage to the environment. Therefore the presence of these pollutants at a single site makes them a good option for studying the behavior and transformation mechanisms of both types of pollutants. Traditional remediation approaches can render the toxicity of pollutants at these sites. However, they are not preferred due to their high cost, low public acceptability, indirect harm to the environment, and more labor involvement. Contrary to it, such sites that are highly contaminated with organic pollutants, metals, and metal(loid)s can be managed by using various approaches like bioremediation, bacterial degradation/transformation, phytoremediation, phytoextraction, immobilization, and combination of these techniques. Likewise the sites polluted with organic explosives, strategies like phytotransformation, bioremediation, bioaugmentation, and photolysis are recommended, which can reduce the levels of toxicants by their transformation, degradation, and conversion into nontoxic forms, whereas phytoextraction, bacterial transformation, in situ immobilization, and phytostabilization can deem the risk of inorganic pollutants at such sites. By undertaking these techniques and management practices, the harm to the environment from these polluted shooting ranges can be scaled down.