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Sunflowers used to soak up radiation around Fukushima nuclear disaster site

Soaking up toxins and restoring hope.

By Katie Machol Simon on Tue, Aug 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Volunteers are helping to spread the seeds across the land, and now sunflowers can be seen sprouting up everywhere — in deep hills, forests and in unused paddy fields.

Abe went on to say, "To overcome this disaster, we should accept that it has already happened and face the reality. Then we should pursue what we can do at this very moment, what impact can we make and how each and one of us can diligently work to improve the situation."

After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, sunflowers were planted to extract radioactive cesium from the nearby bodies of water that had been contaminated. Japanese scientists are currently testing the effectiveness of this method of fighting radiation and are also trying to come up with a solution to properly disposing of the sunflowers.

Information via MSNBC and Inhabitat; photo via The Watchers.

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The horrific Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster on March 11th, caused by the massive earthquake and resulting tsunami, forced 80,000 people from their homes and caused massive environmental damage. The 30-mile radius around the plant has been left uncultivable and radioactive hot spots have been found more than 60 miles away from the nuclear plant site (outside the evacuation zone), leaving in its wake agricultural lands tainted with radiation.

But one man has found a way to begin healing the ravaged land with a natural solution — sunflowers. Koyu Abe, chief monk at the Buddhist Joenji temple, had been testing the use of sunflowers to soak up the radiation toxins from the soil.

"We plant sunflowers, field mustard, amaranthus and cockscomb, which are all believed to absorb radiation," Abe told Reuters. "So far we have grown at least 200,000 flowers (at this temple) and distributed many more seeds. At least 8 million sunflowers blooming in Fukushima originated from here."