The term re-claimed soils comprises of all materials deposited on a site using various methods for different purposes. It is justifiable to name the re-claimed materials as soil, when it comes to the purposes of construction of structures on them considering them as foundation material. Industrial and commercial development of urban areas, development of navigation channels for ports and other waterfront structures require a large usable land which could be possible only by reclamation. Reclamations are also needed, though may be less important, for the disposal of garbage, industrial wastes, paper sludge, mine tailings, etc. Reclamations may be on unusable low level land areas or on large bodies of water. These reclamation especially near larger bodies of water lead to unsavoury odours, greater turbidity and toxicity of shore waters and affect in great extent the ecology of all marine life.
The geotechnical problems to be answered in these areas are control of settlement, increase of bearing capacity and biological stability of fill. Generally reclamation followed by ground treatment is preferable and economical than designing deep foundations.
The materials which are used in practice for reclamation purposes fall into five groups, viz., hydraulic fills of dredged soil, sanitary fill, paper sludge, flash including slag and rubbish sand debris.
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