“Too much of anything is bad, but too much of good whiskey is barely enough” said Mark Twain and many of us took his advice.

Aberdeen University scientists discovered that a by-product from whisky waste (residue) is capable of cleaning contaminated soil and polluted water from chlorines, heavy metals or pesticides.

Fort William Whisky Distilery
Fort William Whisky Distilery – barrels lined up outside – by Justin Dawkins

Dr Graeme Paton, Professor Ken Killham and Dr Leigh Cassidy named it DRAM (Device for the Remediation and Attenuation of Multiple polluatnts) and had “commercial reasons” not to disclose the recipe. They did say something very interesting though. Apparently not only whisky by-products are going to be used because the technology they’ve patented is able to work with other by-products from the food and beverage industry.

Nowadays cleaning processes are not only very expensive but also very slow and here is where the DRAM changes things. It’s cheaper and way faster. Tests so far revealed that the new technology has been very successful fighting pollution so I guess the Irish saying I’ve heard, is true. “What butter and whiskey won’t cure, there is no cure for”. Right?

via EnvironmentalGraffiti

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