Comments on: Inexpensive Arsenic Filtration System Uses Cattails, Aquatic Weeds

By: Global Patriot

Global Patriot — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:16:36 +0000

Anytime we can find a nature remedy for what ails the planet we’re much better off. Hopefully this is a solution that can be adopted on a very wide scale, assuming they don’t pose a threat to waterways as mentioned above.

By: SUNfiltered : Fresh culture daily. » Blog Archive » Green tech finds (7/17/09)

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:46:45 +0000

[...] Worried about arsenic in your (or others) drinking water? Turns out nature may have already developed the perfect technology for getting it out: cattails. [...]

By: Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 126. | The Good Human

Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 126. | The Good Human — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:31:13 +0000

[...] An environmental and civil engineer has developed an inexpensive arsenic filtration system that uses aquatic plants, namely cattails, to remove poisonous arsenic from drinking water. [...]

By: How to get arsenic out of water? Cattails! « lifetinkerer.com

How to get arsenic out of water? Cattails! « lifetinkerer.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:22:11 +0000

[...] about 89% of the arsenic in the water.Â Seems the post comes from the Rancho Sante Fe Review and Blue Living Ideas (links to actual articles).Â And people wonder why mangroves and marshes are so [...]

By: Stephen Klaber

Stephen Klaber — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:51:44 +0000

Cattails and other aquatic weeds collect many kinds of toxins besides arsenic. If they did not, harvesting of the cattails growing wild would be sufficient to completely end the world’s food shortages. Uncontaminated, this is a terrific food plant. And most of it is uncontaminated, but mapping out what is fit for human consumption has not been begun, much less done.

That which has been ‘naturally’ contaminated has proven stable. It appears safe to leave those swamps where the cattail has cleaned up after us alone. The toxins stay there. There are many such places in the streams of Africa and Asia. Let sleeping toxins lie.

Uncontaminated, this is also one of the most versatile fuel plants. Charcoal, ethanol and fuel gas can all be readily made. Moderately contaminated, we can get ethanol or fuel gas, but will also have a contaminated sludge to dispose of.

The other aspect of this plant and the other aquatic weeds is that they are a driving force in worldwide desertification. These are dessication machines and siltation machines destroying the world’s waterways and sucking the land dry. Their reduction and control is key to solving the world’s problems. Their resilience makes their control a never ending effort. It can only be supported by their harvest for fuel and food. And there, their useful ability to collect toxins is only an obstacle.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:08:12 +0000

This is a really interesting piece of info.
I’ve traveled in places like India and they use everything they can for food or fuel…so you’d have to prevent people from burning the plants for cooking fuel (thereby releasing the arsenic back into the environment) or feeding it to cattle (arsenic ends up in milk, meat & poop which also gets burnt for fuel.)