ISBN: 9780865717299
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: New Society Publishers, 2013
Language: English
In the United States and Canada alone, millions of acres have been contaminated by pesticides, chemicals, dirty energy projects, toxic waste, and other pollutants. Conventional clean-up techniques are expensive and resource-intensive and can cause further damage. Communities find themselves increasingly unable to rely on the same companies and governments that created the problems to step in and provide solutions.
Packed with valuable information from visionaries in the field of bioremediation, Earth Repair empowers individuals to heal contaminated and damaged land. It encompasses everything from remediating and regenerating abandoned city lots for urban farmers and gardeners, to recovering from environmental disasters and industrial catastrophes such as oil spills and nuclear fallout.
This fertile toolbox covers various remediation methods including:
. Microbial remediation: using microorganisms to break down and bind contaminants
. Phytoremediation: using plants to extract, bind, and transform toxins
. Mycoremediation: using fungi to clean up contaminated soil and water
Leila Darwish is a community organizer, urban gardener and permaculturalist with a BSc in Environmental Conservation Sciences. Most of her grassroots organizing has centered on environmental justice issues in communities struggling with either the threat of or the enduring legacy of toxic contamination of their land and drinking water. Her focus on grassroots bioremediation stems from a deep commitment to justice and the passionate desire to empower people by providing them with simple, practical, transformative, and accessible tools for regenerative earth repair.