Recycling pollution in Russia

NY Times:

A former Siberian gulag with a population of about 210,000, this decrepit city has some of the worst air quality in the world. It is surrounded by dead trees, as far as the eye can see, poisoned by acid rain.

But to Vladimir M. Stratyev, the eye-stinging haze is an unalloyed blessing, for Mr. Stratyev is, in effect, a miner of air pollution. For him the smog of Norilsk is a mother lode.

The smelters here produce one-fifth of all the world’s nickel, a key alloy of stainless steel, while emitting 1.9 million tons of sulfur dioxide a year, more than the entire country of France. They also spew out 10,800 tons of heavy metal particulates.

For 50 years, a fine, black dust of heavy metals has fallen on the city, mostly nickel but some copper and cobalt as well. In the spring thaw, this soot runs into ponds and streams, where it settles on the bottom into strata that have built up in places three to five feet thick.

Spotting a business opportunity, factory officials have brought in a contractor, Poligon, to extract the metals from one of these deposits, known euphemistically as “technogenic sources of ore.”

Mr. Stratyev, the supervisor of a mining crew, uses a dredge and bulldozer to scoop up the black sludge, rich in nickel that once fell from the sky. He gathers it in mighty piles from a large pond that lies directly downwind from the smelters and returns it to the factory from which it came.

“They should put a monument up to us,” Mr. Stratyev said, standing in front of the dredge he just used to mine air pollution from the bottom of a pond. “We’re solving an ecological problem.”

At the factory, the sludge is hauled to the metal smelters, mixed with ore and refined into pure nickel and other metals, including platinum and palladium. Most nickel is sold to steelmakers, who use it to create the low-sheen metallic finishes so popular now in upscale kitchen appliances. Palladium, paradoxically, is primarily used in catalytic converters, to reduce air pollution from automotive exhaust.

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Nickel is also the component of long lasting batteries used for hybrid cars and in cameras and other small electronics. It would seem more efficient to capture the waste before it gets into the air and pollutes the area. It is surprising they have done nothing with the dead trees, I am sure the Chinese could turn it into furniture and chop sticks.