When Aisling O'Sullivan was a child in Ireland, tracing the journey of stormwater run-off was a source of endless fascination.
In this episode of Voices, she looks back at how her experiences led to her getting involved in ways to help keep NZ waterways clean as an ecological engineer and associate professor at University of Canterbury.
Photo: Supplied
Aisling leads CELTS, the Centre for EcoLogical Technical Solution at UoC where her research helps create solutions that are holistic and conducted in partnership with councils, Iwi and industry.
Early in her career, working on former mining sites in Oklahoma opened her eyes to the devastation that mining caused to indigenous land and ways of life. The huge impact of heavy metal toxicity and run-off in waterways and in the land inspired her to find holistic ways to combat this.
In 2019 Aisling and her colleagues Frances Charters and Tom Cochrane worked together on the award-winning and patented invention ‘Storminator’ that removes heavy metals, like copper or zinc, from roof stormwater in urban areas.
It uses mussel shells – waste products from our green-lipped mussel farming industry mainly in the South Island.
"The mussel industry here produces over 90,000 tonnes of shells every year. Half of them go to landfill at the moment" she says.
Aisling has used shells to treat mine drainage and remove metals in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2006 and she's now working with her PHd students to find solutions to contaminants leaching into waterways,in the farming sector, using the shells.
As New Zealand is races towards its ambitious target for nitrate reduction by 2025 - getting to that goal means using innovative technology and Aisling’s work becomes crucial.
