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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Heavy metal issues

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  • From: John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Heavy metal issues
  • Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 23:23:11 -0700 (PDT)

Aloha,

> I can't recal lif it was John Todd or Gunter Pauli,who spoke of it,
> but apparently there's progress being made in actually extracting
> (some) heavy metals from the plants for reuse/resale.....

I wonder how much energy and what level of technology that takes, and
how safe it is for the people involved and the place it's done in.

The problem to begin with is that we've extracted heavy metals from
their 'safe storage places' via mining and/or smelting (nickel,
cadmium, lead, boron, etc.) or concentrated them via
agriculture/irrigation practices (selenium, etc.). So now we've got
toxic concentrations of them to deal with.

The first two of the four "Natural Step" system conditions address our
processes of concentrating heavy metals - by essentially saying that
these sorts of actions are in direct conflict with 'sustainability'.

In other words, the stuff doesn't go away - they're elements, not
compounds, they don't 'break down'. Best hope, as mentioned, is that
*if* we quit concentrating the stuff, the stuff we've already
concentrated to toxic levels can/will eventually be dispersed to
appropriate trace levels again via whatever ways that can happen.


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Water - Shelter - Community - Technology
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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