Soy Plants Might be Used to Draw Cadmium From Soil

Effective extraction of the toxic metal cadmium from soil may at last be feasible using soybean plants, research in the Netherlands by a Belgian-based environment group shows.

Cadmium, naturally drawn up by plants and passed on to consumers, has been shown to produce kidney damage and resulting calcium loss as well as causing high blood pressure and cancers, a spokesman for the Ecological Life and Cultivation (VELT) said.

Three years of experiments by the organization showed soybean plants extracted up to 16 pct of soil-borne cadmium, which went into the leaves and not into the beans themselves.

Cadmium is present in the soil because of emissions in the past by factories producing non-ferrous metals, the spokesman said.

“Although many of these factories are now using far safer methods of manufacture, the cadmium is already in the soil and until now there has been no way to get rid of it,” he said.