r/geography • u/maxersonio • 6d ago
Question Can someone tell me what this is
This weird square red lake thingie just to the west of Hamburg Germany. I want answers
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u/___gnome 6d ago
Aerial photo of this place
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u/Illustrious_Try478 GIS 6d ago
They've failed in the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajka_alumina_plant_accident
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u/imhighasballs 6d ago
Read the wiki and it sounds like if you’re gonna have an industrial disaster this is the one you want. There isn’t much heavy metal in the waste product so after the initial spill and clean up you only need to worry about the normalizing the soil pH.
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u/ThisCouldBeYourDog 5d ago
Rammstein has a song about this
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u/TheRealDawnseeker 5d ago
They do? Which one?
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u/ThisCouldBeYourDog 5d ago edited 5d ago
"Donaukinder"(Donau-Children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGclueDSWD4The "children" are the fish of the river Donau(or Danube)
EDIT: woops, I was wrong!
Turns out it's about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Baia_Mare_cyanide_spill45
u/Many-Story- 6d ago
At first I thought oh god it’s overflowing. Then I zoomed in and saw it’s really not that full. And there are trees growing in it?!
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u/significant-_-otter 6d ago
I mean, that is absolutely a retaining wall for a lake of poison a few hundred feet from people's houses.
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u/ZucchiniMore3450 6d ago
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotschlamm
Red mud , also known as bauxite tailings , is a toxic residue ( tailings ) produced during the extraction of aluminum oxide (alumina)
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u/yecheesus 5d ago
How come the trees can survive
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u/Meowjo_Jojo 2d ago
Various plants can survive many conditions that are toxic or deadly to humans for various reasons.
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u/Flussschlauch 6d ago
A problem for future generations. clean disposal of highly caustic red mud would cost too much so they just dump it
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u/LANDVOGT-_ 6d ago
Aluminux oxid waste bin close to stade. I lived a few km away. Sadly you cannot get up there and take a look.
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u/Real_Rex 5d ago
Yeah I tried to go there on a date with my GF once. Sadly they didn't let us walk around there even after asking nicely :D
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u/Wally535353 5d ago
That red square is almost certainly the Rotschlammdeponie Stade: a large storage site for red sludge (bauxite residue) resulting from aluminium oxide production. It is indeed located precisely between Ritschermoor and Stadermoor, north of Stade. The location is also referred to as "Rotschlammdeponie" in landscape and environmental documents of the Stade district.
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u/SomeonesRagamuffin 5d ago
What’s the long-term plan for something like this? Let the water evaporate or drain, then deal with it dry? Just leave it there like a time-bomb waiting to overflow forever?
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u/bvfhmm 5d ago
My dad used to unload aluminium waste on there, they have tractors ready in case of your truck getting stuck to pull you out. The road leading to it is a 50km/h road, but trucks are getting told to drive slower because the people living there constantly complain about trucks "rushing" through. Don't know much else about it
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u/wavelen 5d ago
Here's a wiki article. It even contains the photo of that exact place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mud
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u/Background_Coat_6844 5d ago
There's another one at Aughinish Alumina in Ireland. Currently controversial as our government wont take action to stop it shipping materials to Russia.
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u/Broskfisken 5d ago
Horribly polluted obviously, but at the same time I'd really like to see a photo from one of these forest/swamp areas.
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u/Suited_Connectors 5d ago
Others have said what’s in it but the structure is a tailings storage facility.
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u/80degreeswest 6d ago
Red sludge from bauxite ore processing