Ukraine, Zhytomyr Region. The Krasnorichenskyj ilmenite mines, which have been in operation since 2012, have caused water quality degradation and deforestation. Without adequate remediation, there is also a risk of desertification.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lopare (Majevica). Arcore AG plans to extract lithium and boron with estimated reserves of $10 billion, and its exploratory drilling since 2018 is damaging water and fertile soil. The local community has collected over 6,000 signatures to stop it and is awaiting a response.
Bosnia and Herzegovina again, but this time Vareš and a new mine, owned by Adriatic Metals. Opened in 2024, it extracts lead, zinc and barite, but has already caused cadmium contamination in drinking water and illegally destroyed three thousand square metres of forest.
These are just three examples, but there are countless former and future former mines in Europe, with thousands of sites, yet there is still no comprehensive, unified database. With the current hunger for rare and critical raw materials, it will become increasingly difficult to keep track of them, but it will also become increasingly urgent to learn how to deal with them, including managing their environmental impact. Their environmental impacts, in fact, because, depending on the type of mine, we may find ourselves managing the long-term release of contaminated acid drainage effluents, or pollution from heavy metals, or high concentrations of salt, or much more.
Even though we have had the MOSAICO database since 2020, containing all national data on contaminated sites and remediation, we cannot ignore the problem in Italy either. And, in addition to being an environmental issue, it is also an economic one: according to ISPRA estimates, the cost of the necessary remediation would be around €30 billion, but despite this urgency, the remediation market is currently worth only €3 billion per year. In this significant gap between the funds actually available and the funds needed, there is demand, and there are those who are trying to respond and want to do so in a virtuous way. It was not born yesterday, it was not born on the stock exchange but as a spin-off from the University of Milan Bicocca. It was founded and is led by biotechnologist Tatiana Stella (centre in the photo with the team) and is called M3R.
In its nearly six years of activity, this company has grown organically, thanks to self-financing and reinvestment of revenues generated by project activities. It has managed over 120 projects involving the characterisation of contaminated sites, the application of bioremediation measures and related monitoring, growing from €5,000 to €500,000 in turnover. Without any external financing tools such as equity crowdfunding, venture capital funds or business angels, M3R continues on its path today, looking with interest at the European mining landscape. In particular, brownfield-rich contexts such as Ukraine and Bosnia. “In these areas, environmental redevelopment will become increasingly central and, in addition to sharing our technologies, I would like to convey our methodological approach,” he explains. Stella refers to the business and intervention model he chose from the outset, based on the integration of scientific innovation and sustainability and always prioritising the microbiological aspects of bioremediation processes throughout the entire remediation process, from the characterisation of contaminated sites to the definition of site-specific strategies and the monitoring of bioremediation processes. “There is no single remediation technique suitable for all types of contamination: it is necessary to define the best one for each specific site each time,” he explains. This includes former mines.
For now, M3R has begun to address this issue by collaborating on a project to remediate groundwater contaminated by bivalent metals in Chile, but it has everything it needs to intervene wherever there is contamination due to inorganic compounds (metals), biologically removing them through technologies chosen based on the chemical-physical characteristics of the metals (e.g. mobility) and the type of environmental matrix to be treated (soil and water). For water remediation, bioleaching techniques can be applied that use sulphate-reducing bacteria to produce sulphides, which in turn bind the metals, limiting their mobility in the aquifer through the formation of stable and less toxic chemical species that tend to precipitate. For soil remediation, if the contamination is not extremely deep, phytoremediation technologies can be used, such as Phytostabilisation, which exploits the ability of certain plants to retain pollutants at root level, reducing their mobility and dispersion into the groundwater. Or there is phytoextraction, which exploits hyperaccumulator plants that absorb heavy metals into their tissue, facilitating their removal through biomass harvesting.
It feels like browsing through a menu of remediation options when listening to all the bioremediation technologies that Stella and her team have developed over the years. While believing in the use of bacteria, fungi and/or plants to comply with the principles of environmental, economic and social sustainability that are fundamental everywhere today, they have never stopped relying on them, especially in the restoration and redevelopment of contaminated sites. To demonstrate that M3R is not just a slogan, Stella dwells on each aspect of sustainability mentioned, providing details on how it is achieved. Environmental sustainability is achieved by avoiding the use of aggressive chemicals and reducing CO2 emissions compared to traditional methods such as excavation, disposal or incineration. Economic sustainability is achieved by focusing on low-energy technologies with low logistics costs, and social sustainability is achieved by promoting the enhancement of the treated areas through agriculture, construction or the creation of new green areas.
When it comes to scalability, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Each project must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, much like the damage that each mine may or may not leave on a given territory. “Several factors come into play, including the environmental matrix to be treated, the depth of contamination and its type,” says Stella, explaining that her business model also takes into account this “variable scalability,” typical of highly specialised services in the field of environmental microbiology. Especially when applied to the remediation and redevelopment of contaminated sites, this is a very complex field in which it is not possible to act according to pre-established patterns, but which leaves room for improvisation and even growth, because it is little explored and increasingly necessary. To gain more ground than others, M3R focuses on “continuous investment in innovation, high quality standards and a team with long-established expertise”, targeting mainly large industrial groups and oil companies – owners of contaminated sites – but also environmental engineering companies, chemical laboratories and public bodies.
“Over the years, our target market has remained essentially stable, as has our customer profile,” explains Stella, “but our internationalisation strategies follow different directions.” From active participation in international trade fairs and conferences to membership in major European networks such as NICOLE (Network for Industrial Contaminated Land in Europe) and European programmes such as PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area), EUI (European Urban Initiative) and Interreg Euro-MED. But we cannot stop at Europe; there is a world to remediate, and M3R has already begun to do so, again in Chile, but with the course “Contaminated Site Remediation with Genomics: Boosting Bioremediation in South America,” to promote the application of sustainable technologies for environmental remediation. To make ourselves known, but also to share knowledge and, in turn, to learn.
This article was produced as part of PULSE’s Thematic Networks, a European initiative that supports transnational journalistic collaborations, with contributions from Ekaterina Venkina, Sanja Mladjenovic Stevic, Viktoriia Hubareva and Oana Filip.
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