It is an unfortunate fact that there are lots of areas of land all over the Earth that are contaminated. There are many things that can cause land to become contaminated – from chemicals left in the soil from industry to things like asbestos, there are lots of substances which can contaminate land, and this is something to think about going forward as we should be prioritising the health of our planet.
The good news is that a lot of these areas that are contaminated can be de-contaminated – this is something that an expert like this contaminated land remediation company soilfix.co.uk would have to do, but in many cases it is certainly possible.
Something that has caused a lot of controversy since its birth and that attracts a lot of negative attention is nuclear power. The arguments on both sides of the nuclear power debate can be quite heated, but it is a sad fact that the harnessing of nuclear power by humans since the successful splitting of the atom has had a catastrophic impact in many parts of the world since it has been being used.
We all know about the Chernobyl power plant explosion in the Ukraine in 1986 – this is probably the most famous nuclear disaster in history, however there are many other nuclear disasters which are not so well known…
Kyshtym – This was a disaster shrouded in secrecy which happened in the earlier days of the cold war. In 1957 to be exact. The Mayak plant was built as many others all around the world were at this time, in order to obtain the materials needed for making nuclear weapons. This process produces radioactive waste which then must be stored safely, for the hundreds if not thousands of years that it takes to lose its toxic effects. Unfortunately, it was this storage facility which caused the problem and in 1957 it exploded, sending a toxic plume of radioactive waste into the air which travelled and spread on the wind covering a vast area, in the East Ural Mountains. Such was the secrecy surrounding the incident at the time, the death toll is uncertain as well as the environmental impact of this.
Goiania – This bizarre and terrible accident started at a hospital in Brazil. When the hospital relocated, one of the therapy units, containing Caesium 137 was left at the original site due to a legal issue. Whist there, two men broke into the hospital and stole the unit and took it home with them. They managed to break through the steel and lead casing which the dangerous material was encased in, and although whilst doing so started to vomit, they continued trying to reach the centre of it. When they saw inside the shining blue glow they were intrigued – by now one of the men had succumbed to radiation burns so severe that his arm had to be amputated.
Once they saw the blue inside, they wanted to show others this fascinating find – many people came to see it, but when people started to get severely ill and die it was discovered by the authorities, but it was too late for some. Sadly, four people died and many more suffered serios injuries, many internally from the effects of this.