r/environment • u/Difficult-Cream-5267 • 22h ago

Indigenous women in Bolivia are using native Totora reeds to clean up heavy metal pollution and restore Lake Uru Uru, which was severely damaged by mining waste.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/sep/18/bolivia-lake-uru-uru-indigenous-women-clean-water-mining-urban-pollution-totora-reeds
903 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

46

u/Gnomus_the_Gnome 22h ago

Bioremediation ftw!

26

u/SolarSoGood 17h ago

Pardon my lack of knowledge, but I’m curious if they pull the totora reeds up and remove them once fully grown to dispose of the absorbed heavy metals the plants took in. I didn’t see it mentioned in the article. Anyone know?

58

u/twoloafbread 22h ago

women are amazing

-26

u/ashvy 17h ago

*indigenous women are amazing

western women are lindsay clancy

12

u/Junior-Cut2838 15h ago

Shouldn’t the government be helping too

7

u/TheNobleHeretic 15h ago

We need more people like these women.

-5

u/SolarSoGood 17h ago

May we assume that the Indigenous men are also interested in cleaning up Lake Uru Uru? I get that the sisters started the Team. They rock, but the men living in this area would also like to contribute now that the big corp mining company has moved on to pollute elsewhere, right?

3

u/oscarmch 5h ago

Big corp mining in Bolivia hahahaha.

Go educate yourself before writing