Jane Mills and Matt Reed attended the penultimate RECARE annual meeting to discuss project progress and activities for the final six months of the project.
The week long meeting was held in Sibiu in Romania between 16th to 20th April. One day was spent visiting the RECARE case study site looking at solutions to soil contamination. The site has been polluted with heavy metals, such as cadmium, lead, copper and zinc from a nearby metal smelting factory. Consequently, the soil has been damaged by making it more acidic and reducing the biodiversity essential for a healthy below ground ecosystem. This damage has left the soil more prone to erosion and compaction as the structure has weakened. The RECARE soil scientists are working with local farmers to trial ways in which the pollutants are immobilised in the ground and are not taken up by plants, so do not enter the food chain either through plants or animals.
Matt Reed has written a blog about the site called “Living in a polluted world – Europe’s ‘most polluted town'”, in which he describes the damage caused by the metal smelting factory in Sibiu and includes a link to a RECARE film which provides more information about soil pollution issues in Read Matt’s blog
Find out more about RECARE on its project page.
