Today we have a good news story, brought to us by the ineffable Robin McKie of the Guardian, which brings genuine hope, Because it solves two problems for the price of one.[1]
To begin at the beginning. In the last fifteen years or so, England’s rivers have started to fill with huge, choking blooms of algae, which seize all the oxygen from the water, thus killing everything else before, dying back themselves . To leave a poisonous foul-smelling sewer , like the ones you used to find in old towns in the Industrial revolution. The cause? High levels of phosphates on agricultural lands, which runs off into the waterways, producing sudden spurts in the aforementioned algae-and down we go to death, for the ecosystem that is. Now, it could be argued that without high phosphate levels we could not feed our population ( feed or fatten?-ed) So how to square the circle?
The answer is to trap the run-off phosphates and return them to the land. And a small company called Rookwood Operations[2] is doing just that, down in the leafy county of Somerset. Their new Phosphate Removal Material just sits in the water, soaking up the phosphates until it’s full. Whereupon it is returned to the land ready for the farmers to exploit again. And get this:
For every metric ton of PRM produced, carbon is sequestered, locking CO2 for up to 1000 years.
PRM is made from completely natural circular sourced sustainable components
How’s that for two in one? There’s so much to like here for LSS readers. There’s even a feminist angle, as one of the company founders was up for the prestigious UK Women in Innovation Award.
Thinking new. Thinking differently. Using existing technologies to squeeze progress in a new way. Surely that trumps going round smashing your friends over the head because it makes you feel better?
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/02/uk-scientist-wins-prize-for-invention-that-could-help-avert-phosphogeddon
[2]https://rookwoodoperations.co.uk
#Rookwood operations #phosphates #river pollution #capture technologies #agriculture #technology
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