Media Release
May 26 2009
Sunflowers bloom in landfill revegetation project
Sunflowers
are blooming on a former landfill site north of Adelaide as part of a
new research project by UniSA,
CRC CARE and the
City of Salisbury.
Scientists from UniSA and CRC CARE (CRC for Contamination Assessment and
Remediation of the Environment) are using sunflowers and other plants
to remediate the Coleman Road site near St Kilda, which closed as a
landfill dump in the early 1990s.
They are also examining the potential value of biosolids in revegetating
the site, and say that ultimately the dump could be turned into a park
and education resource centre in years to come.
“The main objective is to provide some phytocapping, or plants capping,
and phytostabilisation to the site,” said UniSA’s
Professor Nanthi Bolan.
“We want to provide vegetative cover, and as part of that we’re
investigating whether you need other soil amendments such as biosolids
to successfully achieve a green belt.
“One of the important aspects is phytopumping, or using the plants to
pump water upwards, to reduce any leaching from the site.”
CRC CARE postdoctoral researcher Dane Lamb has been applying biosolids to
sunflowers, Indian mustard and Arundo plants in trial plots at the site.
“The soil has a high pH and there aren’t a lot of nutrients and carbon,
so we’re using biosolids to improve the fertility of the soil,” Mr Lamb
said.
“We’ve found that when we use biosolids it improves the soil’s physical
fertility, chemical fertility and biological fertility. The sunflowers
and Indian mustard have responded well to the higher concentrations of
biosolids used in the plots.
“Sunflowers and Indian mustard are both hyper accumulators of metals,
which means if there’s contamination in the soils, the plant
translocates a high amount of metals from the soil to the above-ground
shoots. You can then harvest the plants and take away the metals.”
Professor Bolan said the research team was pleased the biosolids were
making such a big difference to soil fertility in the trial plots at the
site, with bugs and earthworms living in the plots.
“Ultimately we would like to be able to turn the site into a park and
have a visitor resource centre on remediation and recycling for school
students and the public, but that would be some years away yet,” he
said.
City of Salisbury’s Manager, Strategic Assessment Management, Andrew
Wilson, said the council was pleased to work with UniSA and CRC CARE on
the research project.
“There are benefits for the council in terms of remediating the site and
there are also community benefits, because we get to work with UniSA and
CRC CARE to promote innovation,” Mr Wilson said.
Media contact
- Kelly Stone office (08) 8302 0963 mobile 0417 861 832 email kelly.stone@unisa.edu.au