Researchers at North Carolina State University are working to demonstrate that trees can be used to degrade or capture fuels that leak into soil and ground water. Through a process called phytoremediation – literally a “green” technology – plants and trees remove pollutants from the environment or render them harmless.
Through a partnership with state and federal government agencies, the military and industry, Dr. Elizabeth Nichols, environmental technology professor in NC State’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, and her team are using phytoremediation to clean up a contaminated site in Elizabeth City, N.C.
March 2006: The Coast Guard site before trees were planted.
Phytoremediation uses plants to absorb heavy metals from the soil into their roots. The …

Spain is one of the leading European countries, along with Sweden, in terms of wood production for paper paste, but this uses large amounts of energy.
Spanish and Swedish scientists have compared the environmental load stemming from forestry operations, and have concluded that the Spanish sector uses more energy than the Swedish one. They are proposing improvements, such as the use of biofuels, in order to make forestry production more sustainable.
In order to predict the consequences of forestry operations, the scientists have studied the most important wood species used in making paper paste – the eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) plantations in Spain, and those of the Norway Spruce and Scots Pine in Sweden.
The research study, published recently …

The long-term effects of pesticides on living organisms in rivers and on water quality can now be assessed more easily.
Researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) have developed a tool that can estimate the harmful effect of pesticides, such as those flushed into rivers and streams from agricultural land, within minutes.
“It used to be very difficult to detect which chronic effects occur,” explains Dr Matthias Liess, head of the UFZ’s System Ecotoxicology Department.
In their new approach, the Helmholtz researchers exploit the fact that pesticides cause characteristic changes to the composition of the life community that is affected.
“You just need to find out which living creatures, e.g. insects and crabs, are found at a …

You probably know that asbestos is dangerous. It can cause diseases such as mesothelioma, a deadly lung cancer, and asbestosis, a debilitating disease that interferes with breathing.
You may have heard that asbestos is banned in the United States, but it isn’t.  It is still being used in some kinds of flooring and roofing materials; in some automobile parts, such as brake pads; in some fireproof clothing; and in a number of other products. Should this be a concern?
Maybe.  It is thought the danger is small, but small is not zero. And asbestos has been banned completely in many other countries. Why isn’t it banned in the U.S.?
Here’s the scoop: In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency …

Companies are working with environmentalists to make sure their policies and practices are not harming the environment. One area that is often addressed in helping a company to be more eco friendly is the area of products being used.
While many companies have policies in place to recycle, save paper, and keep from wasting electricity, they don’t always think that the products they use outside of their paper can have an effect on the environment. Industrial degreasers, for example, are products that often contain harsh, artificial chemicals, and when used (even properly) can damage the environment.
Industrial degreasers are used as cleaning products. They are usually used on industrial equipment and machines, and are very different from …