[USCC] FW: CNN story on remediating heavy metals in soils with worms in India

[Chaney, Rufus]

Dear Colleagues:

The story below is bad science.

Yes, worms do absorb some metals from the "soil" in which they live. But
only a small portion. And very little of most metals. Worms come into
equilibrium with the Cu and Zn and Pb in soils or biosolids, but
accumulate Cd and Hg to pretty high levels while removing only a small
portion. There is a large literature on worms and biosolids, composts,
and contaminated soils. And food-chain risks from worms living in
contaminated soils. If anyone is really interested, I can provide
references.

And what would you do with the worms if they could accumulate all the
metals in a soil? If they actually accumulated all of the metals,
perhaps they would have been an alternative ore like the plants we grow
for phytoextraction of soil metals. If they bioconcentrated metals
enough, it could have been useful. But worms as harvested from the soil
contain about 35% soil on a dry weight basis, and that would interfere
with recovery of the metals by usual mining technologies. One of the
valuable aspects of our metal hyperaccumulator plants is that the normal
soil components are not present in the plant biomass. Just plant
nutrients and the accumulated metals, so the plant ash is a high quality
metal ore. Not worm ash.

Conservation of matter still holds regardless of reporter claims or
claims of poor scientists.

Regards,

Rufus Chaney
Beltsville, MD

-----Original Message-----
From: compost-bounces at mailman.cloudnet.com
[mailto:compost-bounces at mailman.cloudnet.com] On Behalf Of Lowell Prag
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 12:25 PM
To: Compost Discussion List
Subject: Re: [USCC] FW: CNN story on remediating heavy metals in soils
with worms in India

On Thu, October 25, 2007 6:52 pm, Karin Grobe wrote:
Story and video at

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/22/eco.about.worms/


Karin Grobe
Organic Recyclers Anonymous

----------------

Hello,

Regarding this excerpt:

"...
Scientists in India have found that worms' digestive systems and
regenerative abilities are so remarkable that they can actually absorb
toxic materials yet expel toxic-free manure. According to the Indian
newspaper, India Together, researchers in Gujarat have found that worms
can "detox" the organic parts of the industrial sludge which results
from
the effluent treatment of industrial or hazardous waste.
..."

No mention of the effects on the worms.

Regards,

Lowell Prag



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