Fukushima city sows sunflower seeds to decontaminate 'hot spot' (JAPAN)

UtrackJul. 21, 2011 - 10:37AM JST

@ Cricky

I found this article, it seems their using sunflowers at Chernobyl.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mim1200/isn3v150/ai18518620/

Botanical cleanup crews: using plants to tackle polluted water and soil - phytoremediation

Rafts with sunflowers growing on them float on a small pond at the Chernobyl nuclear accident site in the Ukraine. No, it's not some touching monument to the 1986 disaster. The plants are helping to clean the pond; their roots dangle in the water to suck up the radionuclides cesium 137 and strontium 90.

This sunflower project is one of many international efforts at phytoremediation-the use of plants to absorb pollutants from air, water, and soil. In the United States, both government agencies and private companies, including Exxon Corp. and DuPont are testing a variety of plants to see if they can do some of the dirty work of cleaning up such pollutants as radioactive material, lead, selenium, and oil. Many plants, it turns out, have a taste for these stubborn contaminants.