Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Grow Sunflowers

Probably next year, the northeasterm region of Japan will appear attractively yellow seen from space. This is because, folks in that region have been asked to grow sunflowers. The call to plant this radiant yellow flower is related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed March's earthquake and tsunami. Sunflowers can help decontaminate radioactive soil.

Volunteers are being asked to grow the flowers then send the seeds to the stricken area, where they will be planted next year to help get rid of radioactive contaminants in the plant's fallout zone.

Thousands of sunflower seeds have been sold including to the city of Yokohama, which is growing sunflowers in 200 parks.

On the home-front, yellow is no longer a tricky color to wear as yellow attire but without the Bersih logo is now allowed according to Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Khalid Abu Bakar.

For foreign readers, Bersih means Clean in the local language. The rally recently held on July 9 is a call by Bersih, an NGO, for Clean and Fair elections advocating electoral reforms.


Image source: Wikipedia

4 comments:

  1. Is it? Sunflowers can help decontaminate radioactive soil? First time hearing this!

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  2. oh really?? sunflowers can help to decontaminate radioactive soil?? that's interesting, thanks for sharing this info.. and i actually love sunflowers.. :)

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  3. Thanks for posting this HappySurfer. The cesium in the soil acts like potassium which plants need and is often applied as a fertilizer. By not adding potassium fertilizer, they hope that the sunflower plants will take up the radioactive cesium instead. Then the plants can be decomposed using bacteria, concentrating the cesium into a small volume which can then be safely stored as radioactive waste.

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  4. i think my house has a few.. not sure if there are real or not.. lol.. coz we used to have fake sunflowers inside the house :P

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