Kate recently went on a walkthrough of DuPage County Landfill in Chicago where poplar trees are being used to clean up contaminated leachate from an unlined landfill. Since 2018, a remediation system comprised of 8,500 trees on 14 acres of land irrigated by polluted stormwater has treated more than 20 million gallons of leachate that would otherwise need to be treated at a waste water facility. Aside from being beautiful and contributing to environmental cooling via evapotranspiration, this approach also saves a lot of energy by reducing emissions and also significantly reduces processing costs. Read more about this PHYTO project here: How do you treat contaminated rainwater at a DuPage County landfill? Let trees clean it. (dailyherald.com)
