The Prevention Technologies Program determines how some contaminated soils, treated soils, municipal and industrial wastes may be safely reused on land to return maximum value without creating further contamination issues. It is integrated with Programs 1 and 2, and includes:

• Development of new techniques for assessing and applying wastes to maximise value and avoid subsequent contamination
• Modification of contaminated soils and wastes by coupling bioremediation and immobilisation so as to avoid adverse effects
• Manufacture of slow-release nutrient-rich artificial soils from municipal and industrial wastes
• Techniques for the large scale application of wastes to land to enhance crop production
• Techniques for characterising waste materials so they can be reused in various ways. 

The Prevention Technologies Program includes three subprograms:

• Manufactured soils
• Soil recycling
• Biodegradation of agricultural wastes.

These subprograms address the broad questions of reusing solid wastes, particularly investigating the innovative use of organic wastes in agriculture for their nutrient content (nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur), reuse of mineral solid wastes as soil replacements (either as an artificial soil in urban settings, or as a soil replacement in industrial and mining situations), and the use of metallic manufacturing wastes for their micronutrient value (e.g. copper, zinc, manganese).