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Arnold Hertog and his wife Huguette have always loved tending their garden in the small Flemish town of Sintermans, not far from Brussels.

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But the garden hasn't always looked like this.

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In 1998, the couple were told that their home, along with more than a hundred neighbouring houses, was sitting on an environmental time bomb.

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It was discovered that the earth was contaminated with poisonous compounds, including arsenic and mercury.

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We stopped our career without a single sick day.

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Arsenic levels were 400 times the permitted amounts for a residential area.

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Lead and mercury 100 times too high.

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The potential long-term risks were considered too great.

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So after consultations with the residents, and despite the disruption involved,

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the Flemish environmental authorities considered the only acceptable solution was to remove the contaminated gardens.

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The years that I didn't work there, you just sit there.

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You always think, the fact that I've already done it, I'm lost.

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They were all lost years.

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But yes, we didn't stop.

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But yes, we also assumed that if it was necessary, it had to be done.

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There's no going back.

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It's for us as well as for others.

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It's for everyone.

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Arnold Hertog kept a video record of the whole operation.

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First, memories of the flourishing old garden, and then the day in summer 2005,

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when the bulldozers finally moved in.

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Trees were cut down and the plants ripped out.

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Even the garden shed had to be taken away.

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Then excavations began, and a deep layer of topsoil was removed

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before new earth could be brought in and the grass restored.

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First, 75 centimetres were excavated.

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Then a layer of foil was laid.

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And on top of that, good soil,

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good soil that was extensively chemically checked,

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was brought back.

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And that's soil that's actually pure,

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that can be used for all functions,

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both grass, playground and vegetable garden.

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The Flemish public waste agency, OVAM, only discovered the problem in Sint Hermans

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when it began to compile a register of polluted soils

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and introduced a system of soil certification for every property sale.

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The inventory aims to identify and solve problems at an early stage

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and provides people buying land with information to make an informed purchase.

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In Flanders, our region is relatively small

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and has been pretty heavy industrialised since the last two centuries.

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So, I mean, that makes it for us quite important

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to be able to talk about soil quality

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because a lot of that old industries have contaminated the land.

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And, I mean, there's just too little land left

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just to go to greenfields all the time

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and just leave those old sites derelict.

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22,000 soil investigations have now been carried out in Flanders

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and 2,000 clean-up projects approved.

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Polluted earth is taken either to landfill sites

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or to a giant cleaning plant where the soil is filtered and tested

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before then being reused for industrial projects.

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There may be as many as 3.5 million potentially contaminated sites around Europe.

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Not every country cares for its soils in the way Flanders now does.

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Europe's soil is being damaged and degraded at an alarming rate.

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So now the European Commission is proposing a Europe-wide soil strategy

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to include new legislation to protect and restore

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what is essentially a non-renewable resource.

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We have to protect the soil

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if we are to protect our health, our water, our food

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and the richness of Europe's nature.

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Our strategy does this in a comprehensive and holistic way

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by creating a common legal framework to protect it.

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The new European Directive will require each EU country

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to prepare an inventory of risks to the soil

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based on Europe-wide criteria

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and to draw up prevention and remediation programmes.

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One of the main threats is erosion

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and also the serious reduction in organic matter,

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both made worse by inappropriate farming methods.

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Salinisation is another threat caused by intensive irrigation

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which can seriously affect the fertility of the soil.

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Soil compaction and sealing are a result of heavy traffic and urbanisation

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and of course contamination.

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Professor Mark Kibberwhite is a British soil scientist

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who has been a key advisor on the new EU soil strategy.

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Just look into this soil, if I just tease it apart and you have a look inside

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and you see all those roots and plant residues that are decaying

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because microbes are decomposing them.

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Well, those microbes are doing work for us.

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They're taking, for example, pollutants

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that might have come from the atmosphere and degrading them

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and that's what I see.

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I see a living system which is alive and in my hand

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and that's what we've got to care for.

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An impressive soil atlas has been compiled as part of the new protection plan

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which charts more than 300 different types of soils in Europe.

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The computer-generated maps show that large parts of the total land area of the EU

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are damaged in one way or another.

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There are a range of threats to our European soils.

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We need to be concerned about all of those

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but, for example, if we look at organic matter in soils,

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this is generally in decline across Europe.

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This map shows the levels of organic carbon in the north and the south.

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In the south there are some areas where the organic carbon is so low

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that the soil effectively has become dysfunctional, no longer works properly.

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We have an emerging desert-type situation.

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On the other hand, this map shows the extent of erosion in different parts of Europe

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and altogether we have really quite a serious erosion problem.

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Erosion is the loss of topsoil through rain or wind

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but it's made much worse by bad farming practices such as inappropriate ploughing.

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In a rainstorm here in Andalusia,

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20 tonnes of soil can be washed off just one hectare of land,

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causing the organic content, the nutrients of the soil, to be lost

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and nitrates, phosphates and pesticides run down into the water system.

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The topsoil is the part that matters most.

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Once it's gone it can take several thousand years for just a few centimetres to reform.

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These days some Spanish farmers are trying out more environmentally friendly farming practices.

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Olive trees are interplanted with wheat to preserve the goodness and stabilise the soil.

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Here a crop of chickpeas is planted on top of last year's crop residue.

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Now, even in heavy rain, the soil is no longer being washed away.

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These are the sort of projects which the European Commission hopes will start to be adopted widely across Europe.

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We want to ensure that soil stays healthy for future generations

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and remains capable of performing the enormous functions

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on which our ecosystems, our quality of life and our economic activities depend.

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The people in Sintermans in Belgium certainly know how precious soil is.

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They know now that their newly laid gardens are clean and safe.

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And saving soil is also saving money.

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The whole five-year programme to replace the contaminated earth in Sintermans

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is costing the Flemish authorities more than 11 million euro.

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A hefty price tag and the sort of bill the European Commission hopes can be avoided in future

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once Europe really starts to care for its soil.