UK: Vinegar cleans toxic waste

British scientists have found there's a lot more to vinegar than splashing it on your chips: it could help cleanse polluted groundwater and prevent disease.

Environmental health specialists at the University of Leeds have found that adding dilute acetic acid (vinegar) to contaminated water from landfills containing waste from now-closed industrial factories can make polluted run-off cleanse itself.

Their target is harmful chromium compounds found in groundwater at sites with waste from former UK textile factories, smelters, and tanneries. Research has linked this pollution to cancer, kidney, liver, lung and skin problems.

Adding vinegar to such landfills stimulates the growth of naturally occurring bacteria by providing an attractive food source.

"In turn, these bacteria then cleanse the affected area by altering the chemical make-up of the chromium compounds to make them harmless," said a note from the university.

Leeds researcher Dr Doug Stewart said: "Highly alkaline chromium-related contaminants were placed in inadequate landfill sites in the UK right up until production stopped in the 1970s."

Stewart said that in other countries, production of large quantities of these chemicals still continued.