Many philosophers such as Heidegger and artists such as Chillida and Oteiza have remarked on an alternative vision of space to that of the passive deposit that houses subject at the service of the human being. For them, space is something else. They maintain a living perception that makes life possible. This approach can be transferred to one of these spaces in particular: the ground. For decades we have considered the Earth to be a storeroom from which we extract resources without worrying about it. Under this instrumental vision, the Planet ends up paying the consequences of this withdrawal. This is the case of the abusive and indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides carried out over a long period of time by employment . This has led to a reduction in soil fertility, i.e., in soil health. And the consequent decline in plant production has made us realize that the soil is alive, that it is not a medium, but an ecosystem to be cared for.

However, even if the paradigm is changing (some emerging laws limiting soil inputs testify to this, such as Royal Decree 1051/2022 on sustainable nutrition, or Royal Decree 529/2023 on fertilizer products), much of the damage has been done. It is therefore urgent to take action in the short term deadline to remedy the damage caused. In this sense, our research focuses both on the design of new, more efficient and sustainable inputs, and on the generation of solutions to clean the contaminated soil. For this reason, we have developed a broad-spectrum decontaminant to eliminate lindane from affected soils.

Lindane is a pesticide that was used for many years to stop insect attacks on crops. However, over time, its toxic effects on the environment, plants and humans were detected. It was even classified as carcinogenic. All this stopped its application, but there are still large stores of lindane and dangerous by-products in hills, as it is a persistent and bioaccumulative compound. This poses a danger since these organochlorine products can be washed by rain into adjacent rivers with consequent damage to aquatic life and crops irrigated with water from those rivers. It can therefore end up in human consumption.

The incidence and seriousness of the issue has repercussions both at national level - with landfills and affected areas in Aragon, Galicia, the Basque Country and Navarre (Sabiñánigo, Barakaldo and Asua, and Viana and Iguzkiza) - and at European level, where there are more than 280 points of contamination by lindane. In fact, the EU has been dealing with this problem for some time now, diverting various funds for its treatment.

The solutions used include the treatment of low concentrations of lindane, water purification or the extraction of contaminated soils. These strategies are partial, insufficient or technologically or economically unfeasible. In this context, we have developed a project in partnership with Magna and Emgrisa to attack the lindane accumulated in landfills in Bailín, in Sabiñánigo. In that conflict area, and under a agreement with the board of Aragón, we carried out a essay in real conditions applying our proposals.

The proposed alternative is based on a compound with micropores that harbors a particularly absorbent compound in a reducing and alkaline atmosphere. In this way, we have combined two complementary mechanisms of destruction Chemistry of lindane to increase the removal efficiency. In addition, the high adsorptive capacity of the product also allows the remediation of heavy metals, thus making the product a polysorbent, i.e. a simultaneous decontaminant of organic and inorganic contaminants.

The great advantage of the product is that it is a simple and viable composition that can be applied directly to the soil and that irreversibly eliminates large quantities of lindane, thus acting on the focus of the problem, i.e. on the lindane dumps.