Filled landfills, abandoned iron ore and sulfur quarries, silt fields near aeration stations are serious threats to the environment. In our country, they occupy thousands of hectares and the number of uninhabitable areas is only increasing.
Researchers from Viacheslav Chornovil Institute of Sustainable Development, Lviv Polytechnic National University, decided to help return the disturbed lands to the ecosystem. Last year, researchers applied to the National Research Foundation competition «Support for research of leading and young scientists» the project «Development of integrated technology for obtaining and using substrates based on organic waste and natural sorbents for biological reclamation and remediation of man-made disturbed lands» and received grant funding.
We asked Myroslav Maliovanyi, the research project supervisor, Head of the Department of Ecology and Sustainable Environmental Management, the Institute of Sustainable Development: «What is the essence of technology? What has already been done and how are the results of the project planned to be implemented?»
Mr. Maliovanyi explained that the goal of the researchers is to create a substrate based on sewage sludge, which will help to carry out biological land reclamation. This will solve two problems at the same time: reduce the number of silt fields and return technologically disturbed lands to the ecosystem.
The full text of the article is on the website of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine.