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| | | CONNECT - Pastures New
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Go to the Listen Again page | | | | | Our industrial past has left a legacy of pollution. | | | |
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The role science plays in everyday life often goes unnoticed. A visit to the museum, the dentist or even the fridge exposes us to breakthroughs in the lab that have spilled out into the real world. In Connect Quentin Cooper examines the technologies that make an impact on us all and finds out whether they are helping or hindering.
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Industry is cleaning up its act. The heavy pollution pumped out by mines and factories during the industrial revolution has been brought under control by legislation and the adoption of clean technologies. But the hangover from the days of heavy industry is still with us in the UK. Vast tracts of land across Britain remain heavily contaminated with the poisonous by-products of the factories and mines that were long ago pulled down. There are scars on the landscape that many people would rather pretend do not exist.
But now there is a new incentive to build additional homes across the country, particularly in the South East, and that has generated a drive to clean up the old factory floor and build on brownfield sites. The remediation work that renders these plots of land safe to build on is becoming more sophisticated and a new area of scientific research and development has been opened up - one in which the government is prepared to invest serious sums of money.
From the retired coal mines of South Wales, to polluted ground water in London, scientists are battling to find the best ways of restoring land to its pre-industrial state. The techniques by which they are attempting to do this are increasingly ambitious. “Bio-remediation” in which plants, animals and bacteria are used to clean the land is one of the most exciting avenues of development. Bacteria, it seems, can be used to digest seemingly anything, even radio-nucleotides, and their exploitation in this field is critical. GM plants have the ability to draw up pollutants from the earth which can then be cut down and removed with the harvest. Small animal species can also play a role in this fascinating application of ecosystem engineering.
In the first programme of a new series of Connect, Quentin Cooper questions whether too much faith is being placed in these new technologies. Are we really capable of undoing the negative effects of Britain’s industrial expansion? Is the cost of the clean-up justified? And will successful remediation provide just the excuse industry needs to carry on polluting in the short term? | | |
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