Peat

• Wetlands across the globe have long served as natural repositories for humanity’s toxic legacy, absorbing and retaining hundreds to thousands of years’ worth of pollution.
• Now, however, a combination of human disruptions and ever increasing wildfires threaten to open these vaults, unleashing their long dormant toxic contents upon the world.

Threats to releasing toxic legacies

• Centuries of fallout from industrial processes such as smelting has deposited toxic metals in wetlands hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away from their point of origin.
• Peat has a tremendous ability to capture and retain toxic metals by binding the metals to the peat itself through a process called adsorption.
• Once bound, the toxic metals are immobilized and pose little threat to the surrounding environment unless the peatland is disturbed, like from a wildfire.

Wetlands and fire

• Human activities such as road building and resource extraction have seriously disrupted wetland ecosystems, leaving drained wetlands vulnerable to fire, as Canadians saw in the catastrophic Fort McMurray, Alta., wildfire of 2016.
• As climate change and human actions further degrade wetlands, the resulting wildfires threaten to return humanity’s toxic legacy.
• Furthermore, as concentrated pollutants build up in wetlands, the accumulation of toxic metals is killing plants that act as their natural lid, allowing moisture to escape and speeding the conversion of more wetlands to tinderboxes.
• Making a bad situation worse, toxic metals once safely stored in wetlands bind to these airborne particles and spread everywhere.

Restoring wetlands

• Indeed, even without further intervention, re-wetting wetlands can reduce their risk of wildfire ignition.
• However, restoration must be managed carefully, to avoid flushing toxic metals from wetlands into neighbouring streams, rivers and lakes.
• Although ecosystem restoration can be costly in terms of time and money, actively restoring wetlands appears to be our best chance to defuse the ticking time-bomb that our pollution vaults have become.

• The new single malt whiskies use both Irish peat and Irish-grown barley the first distillery in generations to do so as part of Waterford's quest to unearth whisky's most natural flavors and commitment to Irish-only ingredients.
• In true Waterford Whisky style, the approach needed a radical approach to ensure its Irish provenance.
• Irish peat has been redundant in whisky production since the turn of the 20th century, which meant all knowledge of how to use Irish peat had passed out of memory.
• Waterford Distillery sourced small amounts of peat cut from Country Kildare, and worked alongside their established malting partner, Minch Malt.

• EWING, N.J., Oct. 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Antares Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATRS) (the Company), a specialty pharmaceutical company, today announced the appointment of Carmen Volkart to its Board of Directors.
• Ms. Volkart is a seasoned medical device executive with extensive finance and operations experience at publicly traded and private companies.
• Leonard S. Jacob, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Board of Antares Pharma, commented, We are delighted to welcome another experienced healthcare executive to the Board of Directors.
• Ms. Volkart commented, I am delighted to join the Board of Directors at Antares Pharma and support their efforts as they continue to enhance their proprietary portfolio and partner business.

• WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Consumers will now have a new, environmentally friendly and professional-grade soil mix option, as the new Beyond Peat soil mix line launches nationwide at Walmart this spring.
• This line of soil products features exclusive Bio-Fiber Technology, is 100% peat-free and is derived from sustainable, renewable resources.
• The new line of Beyond Peat products include garden soil, potting mix and raised bed mix, all of which are 100% organic and all-natural.
• According to Beyond Peat, these products are also environmentally friendly in the way that they optimize land use, limit water consumption and maximize plant yield.