The Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM) is comba­ting histo­rical soil and ground­water pollu­tion in the De Lieve water­course with the instal­la­tion of inno­va­tive reac­tive mats. These mats are filled with biochar contri­buted by our partner company Novo­Carbo GmbH. The pollu­tion origi­nates from indus­trial acti­vi­ties from the 19th century.  The water puri­fi­ca­tion is part of the Euro­pean project RESANAT (“REst­ve­ront­rei­ni­ging SAneren met NATure-based tech­nieken”), a Flemish-Dutch part­ner­ship. The envi­ron­mental company Esana is the imple­men­ting company.

These inno­va­tive mats are placed after the conta­mi­nated sludge layer has been removed.  They are desi­gned to filter the pollut­ants from the ground­water and break them down natu­rally. In this way, they protect the surface water from conta­mi­na­tion until the surroun­ding land is fully remediated.