Banana peel can purify water say scientists

Plant roots and soil are nature's way of purifying water... and they get stronger (as a filter) over time. Of course, if you're filtering out mercury it's best to grow a hardy plant you aren't going to eat and combine it with a mushroom that can help with the toxic load on the plant... And... when you add mushrooms (or mycelia) into the mix, you can detoxify soil from biological contaminants, too. When that farm in (I don't remember where) had that flood where swine flu was flowing into the watershed, mycologists used a perimeter of mushrooms to extract the biological threat from the soil. Mother Earth has already solved the problems we're still creating. It's unfortunate that we have to think in terms of how much toxin we can remove from our water... it was never supposed to be this way... and soon, even the power of natural systems will not be enough to resist our machinations. So ... waste less and grow a garden, I guess. :)

I love hearing reports like this. Our future is sustainable....

Brilliant, even more of a case for me to convince my fellow new yorkers to build greenhouses for banana trees and tropical plants. At the moment a group of us friends are experimenting with urban gardens with the hopes of helping people in the city start their own gardens passing along the knowledge throughout. One would believe New York would lead the charge of urban gardening but its primarily linked to the usual suspects; cosmopolitan progressives. This is fine but it can become a kind of organic botanist class which may turn the poorer residents off as bourgeois nonsense. Basically loads of little hurdles but nothing too intense.

Anyone familiar with new york knows that the east river is one of the most polluted waterways in the US. From this research a series of cleanup efforts could be facilitated and with a little engineering could be vastly cheaper than contemporary solutions. especially if the city is producing its own bananas. This is even more true for people living with heavily polluted waters in places such as Appalachia. The question is when do we get moving with some working models?

We found the same phenomena in our early aquaculture greenhouse experiments with water hyacinths completely purging heavy metals from water.
Mother nature could save us if we paid any attention to her.

Good find! I was hoping that all the fruit and vegetables scraps that I don't eat could find a useful way into being reused (other than being composted).