CT Company Uses Everyday Ingredients to Clean Up Oil Spills, Toxic Sites
VeruTEK’s soil remediation technology could make scenes like the one above, in which a heating oil tank and contaminated soil had to be removed, a thing of the past. (image: luzoninc.com)
A leak in a home heating oil tank can be a nightmare for a homeowner, and an expensive one at that. If the oil seeps into soil or groundwater the homeowner may be responsible for removing tons of contaminated soil along with the leaking tank. But a company in Connecticut has developed an environmentally friendly technology that can remediate soil without removing it, all by using natural ingredients that remove pollutants like oil from soil and groundwater.
VeruTEK Technologies, Inc. of Bloomfield, CT uses biodegradable extracts derived from sources such as oranges, tea leaves, red wine grapes, soybeans, and others that decontaminate soil or water that has been polluted by oil or toxins, reported the Hartford Business Journal on Monday. “Using simple material, we have a series of remediations,” said an EPA scientist collaborating with VeruTEK, Dr. Raj Varma. “Nature does it all the time.” ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and Dow Chemical are among the companies that have used VeruTEK products or services.
Douglas Anderson, the CFO of VeruTEK, says his company’s technology is more effective and considerably cheaper than traditional remediation. As with a technology that uses bacteria to aid soil remediation, VeruTEK’s product can be injected into affected soil in at least some cases and would not require anyone to leave their home while VeruTEK’s biodegradable product does its work, according to the company’s website.
Cleaning up a home heating spill could take as little as two days, VeruTEK claims. By lowering costs and shortening cleaning times, cutting-edge remediation technologies like VeruTEK’s could be heating oil users first choice in case of a leak.
