Plants were on the earth before humans. If not for plants, humans would not be able to exist. And as long as man has inhabited this earth, plants have been cleaning up after him. They take our carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen so we can breathe. They use animal waste as food and grow bigger. As seedlings grow into trees, they protect us from the damaging sun and keep our earth cooler. Now that man has polluted the earth, we are learning to use plants to clean up after us and maybe save our water and soil...so we can have safe water and soil in which to grow more plants. And the cycle can go on. Phytoremediation is a big word for finding the right plants to do the clean up work we so need. Plants have always supported us. Now they are saving us from ourselves. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Use our natural ecosystems. Plants take up water and organic contaminants through their roots. The contaminated water is taken into the leaves and released as a detoxified vapor into the atmosphere.
2. Use plants for decontamination in place rather than transporting waste material somewhere else and trying to treat it. Plants excrete and provide enzymes and organic substances from their roots that stimulate growth of microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria. The microorganisms in the root zone then metabolize the organic contaminants. This can help decontaminate our soils and make them suitable for more planting.
3. Plant our levees, the sides of our roads and interstates. Wherever we have run off filled with contaminants, we can use plants to clean up after us. The plants can control erosion and reduce run off. They can control lateral migration of contaminants into our ground water.
4. Filter our water with plants. We now use chlorine to make our water safe to drink. Submerged and floating aquatic plants can do the same thing without harsh chemicals that we must either ingest or filter out. If a water treatment plant is set up in stages using the same plants you find in swamps and wetlands with contaminated water filtering through gravel, sand and long rooted floating plants, it is drinkable and healthy after that filtering.
5. Remove toxins from the soil with plants. Toxic metals can be metabolized to non-toxic molecules by natural chemical processes in the plant. Sunflowers and Chinese Brake ferns have been found to significantly reduce arsenic. Alpine pennycress can reduce toxic levels of cadmium and zinc. Lead can be reduced by Indian Mustard, Ragweed, Hemp Dogbane or Poplar trees. Barley and sugar beets can remove salt from areas flooded by sea water and allow them to support other plant life again. Sunflowers were used to remove uranium after the Chernobyl accident.
Tags: plants clean, clean after, contaminated water, have been, organic contaminants, plants clean after