Newberry-Dupe & Ware – Drawing through the Landscape: Plants, Toxicity and Illustration

Contaminated post-industrial sites proliferate Australia. The former locations of power stations, mines, and rail corridors – these brownfield sites sit vacant, often still housing the buildings/infrastructure that poisoned the soil in the first place, actively rusting, rotting, and leeching more toxins into the soil. Newcastle, as a major post-industrial city is home to more than 10% of the states 1395 contaminated sites, which have been notified to the Environment Protection Authority.

Traditional methods of remediating toxic sites involve soil scraping and capping. Neither of these techniques lessen the amount of contaminated soils present on the earth, nor do they address long term issues of pollution of natural resources. Caps crack, waste disposal centres leech. The cycle continues.