Fungi and plants clean up California pollution

Scientists think some plants and fungi could be harnessed to get rid of dangerous pollutants and even recycle them.

Scientists are carefully measuring how much the plants have grown and what they have absorbed.LOS ANGELES - In an industrial wasteland in Los Angeles, Kreigh Hampel is uprooting California buckwheat with a pitchfork to find out how much lead it has absorbed.

"The conventional method of cleaning up sites is just to dig up all the contaminated soil and to dump it somewhere else," she told AFP. Oyster mushrooms have been incorporated into the soil because of their natural role in decomposition: Their underground part, called the mycelium, is sucking up diesel.

Danielle Stevenson's bioremediation project is being carried out on three sites in and around Los AngelesStevenson thinks of the plants essentially as"solar-powered vacuum cleaners: They basically suck up the metals, like lead, into their bodies.The lead and other metals can then be recovered from those plants -- and even reused.

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