Ohio’s John Sabraw is an artist who uses the oxidized sludge from abandoned coal mines to help raise awareness regarding this result from burning fossil fuels.
Capturing the pigments of the toxic waste that he and Guy Riefler, an environmental engineer found required some creativity to extract, “We pump the toxic, acidic water coming from the mines into a large, portable container and bring it to the lab,” Sabraw outlined. “At this point it is fairly clear, then our engineers pour it into tanks with bubblers set to aerate it at a certain rate. As the metals oxidize they fall to the bottom and become a wet sludge of mostly iron oxide.”
What these art pieces really do is highlight that though something beautiful is being created, it is only because of actions that are very ugly and will only serve to harm the environment in both the long and short term.
Artist Paints w Toxic Sludge in an Effort to Raise Awareness of Pollution https://t.co/LipToX6Sfj
— Julia Duze (@JDuze21) October 25, 2017
