This work deals with various aspects of environmental contamination. One of the fields considered in this work is atmospheric pollution. This has become a major problem of our time, and could soon develop into a scandal through the overestimation of the impact of greenhouse gases such as ozone, NOx or SO2, which allows their use as political instruments. Another growing field of importance covers the fundamental questions posed by the problem of soils and their interaction with waste from human activities, eg. sterile mining waste, sewage sludge, and contaminated dredged material. How do these different elements react and how tolerant can our system be towards them? This publication, containing a selection of the most important work presented at the 5th International Conference on Environmental Contamination, reflects some aspects of the present state of research and our society's dominant preoccupations.