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Floating islands: a solution ashores

Posted by: Maven on December 7, 2008 at 7:13 am

From The Business Monthly:

After spending most of his career in the law enforcement field, Ted Gattino never thought that a hunter’s mucked-up hunting dog would be the genesis for the next step of his career. The dog in question was a yellow lab named Rufus. His owner, Bruce Kania, couldn’t stand the reddish-tint or “rotten Easter egg smell” of his sporting dog when he emerged from chasing game in his backyard pond in Montana slathered in nutrients that he not only didn’t want on his dog, but in the environment.

The solution? Kania invented floating islands, which are made from recycled plastic bottles. Theses matrices are packed with various materials and plant life that are used to convert nutrients from the water.

Having solved the problem locally, Kania founded Floating Island International, a think tank in Shepherd, Mont. (near Billings), and turned his attention toward the needs of the planet. That’s where Gattino, managing partner with Blue Wing Environmental Solutions & Technologies in Severna Park, came in. He’s the East Coast distributor for the product and is banking that the floating islands will gain wide acceptance as a practical way to clean the water and the surrounding environs through “biomimicry,” which is “taking nature’s design and engineering it for man’s use.”

The media used to build the islands is “very fibrous, like a giant steel wool pad,” Gattino said, noting that each 250-square-foot island is made from 6,000 recycled plastic bottles and has the look of a natural habitat.

The idea was spawned when Kania was growing up in Wisconsin, where he observed the positive effects of peat moss-based floating islands. “I was a fishing guide and noticed the large number of fish that grew around such floating islands because the water was so clean.”

Read more from The Business Monthly by clicking here.

December 7, 2008 · Filed Under Innovative Ideas

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