Utilization of industrial production waste as a component of the artificial soil mix composition

Belgorod State Technological University named after V G Shukhov, Kostyukov St., 46, Belgorod, Russia, 308012

^* Corresponding author: pendyrinea@yandex.ru

Abstract

The technological development of mankind is accompanied with extracting a large amount of natural resources, which are then returned to the environment in the form of production and consumption waste. The problem of organizing industrial waste recycling is of high priority nowadays for all countries of the world, including the Russian Federation, due to the necessity to reduce the amounts of waste dumping at landfills. It is determined that 89 % of the waste, generated in the Belgorod region, result from the mining and metals sector and chemical industry. At present about 11 % of land resources in the world are disturbed lands, which require recultivation processes. As an alternative solution the application of artificial soil mixes on the basis of industrial waste is possible. It is demonstrated that the designed multicomponent compositions of artificial soil mixes with the use of industrial waste have no phytotoxic action on the development of higher plants, and can form a nutrient-rich fertile soil mix, which would provide the proceeding of physical-chemical processes between all its components, which increases the crop yield of higher plants – through the example of garden cress – by 20–40 % in comparison with the control sample. The designed soil mixes can be used when implementing the biological stage of recultivating technologically disturbed lands.