An innovative project in Brooklyn, New York, could be set to
dredge the sludge from the bottom of the Gowanus canal, and turn
it into washing machine-sized glass cubes for use in
construction projects. The canal has been designed as a site for
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) superfund, as it's
chock-full of chemicals, tar, sewage, industrial metals, and
dead bodies dumped by the city's criminal fraternity. Nasty
stuff. But by stuffing the sludge into metal moulds, heating it
up and adding sand, the mess can be frozen into glass cubes that
could be used to renovate the area and even be turned into
sculptures. The process is called vitrification, and is used to
dispose of radioactive waste in a stable state at many nuclear
reactors. By heating the sand, it binds the silica molecules
with the heavy metals, making them relatively inert. It also
kills off any organic matter, and reduces the volume of the
"black mayonnaise", as some refer to it as. A filter catches any
nasty emissions. However, it's an ex