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Cannabis Helps
Lead and heavy metals: one little-known solution to the problem of soil contamination is offered by the vegetable world and particularly by one of its most infamous plants – cannabis. Cannabis is one of the best hyper-accumulatory organisms known to man.
This means that it is a vegetable that can assimilate the toxic substances present in the terrain through its own roots. In the case of metals, cannabis can concentrate within itself a quantity 100 times greater than other plants.
Phytoremediation is the term used to describe the system of soil decontamination based on the use of hyper-accumulatory plants. The advantages? They can be used over a vast area at a relatively low cost and they contribute to revaluing the landscape.
And toxic metals are not the only thing that can be removed. Areas can be decontaminated from radiation and nuclear waste : in 1995 a swamp near Chernobyl was rid of caesium and strontium by using a particular strain of sunflower. Similar systems are being trialled today to decontaminate certain areas in the Balkans such as Veles in Macedonia, one of the most contaminated cites in Europe, due to the presence of lead and zinc. There is one disadvantage, however: how to dispose of the contaminated bio-mass? Plants can do a lot, but man still has to think about this part.
(09/06/2007)
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