CURRENTS

摘要

On a side street in Norwalk, Connecticut, just a block from fully rigged sailboats bobbing in the harbor, Soundkeeper Terry Backer pulled back the grill on a storm drain and revealed a mesh box hanging from four straps and sagging under the weight of grayish sand. "All of this sediment is contaminated," he says. "If you were producing it out of a factory, it'd have to be classified as controlled waste." The 275 Abtech filters Backer helped install in Norwalk in 2005 have collected more than seven tons of sedimentary waste, a polluted cocktail of trash, heavy metals, oil, grease, paint and, according to Backer, "whatever falls on the ground." Much of it would otherwise have ended up in the water.