europe review the future is being determined. now, our documentary series will show you how people, companies and countries are rethinking everything and making later changes were 1000000 for cuba. if a massive cyber attack or something like that happens and we can reboot our country from the outside world a from its own future after all. and if we don't do something, our children won't be able to enjoy fresh air for emotional reform. europe revealed this week and d, w we plow the soil to grow plants to eat. we draw water from wells to quench our thirst . and we extract natural resources to produce goods,

but we can only continue to do so if we make these processes more sustainable. for example, by reciting more all using alternatives like him rather than leather and feeding font fish with insects instead of fish meal. ah, welcome to dw science show to morrow to day. funky has an ancient origins. in recent years, dalton experts identified funky fossils between 7 and 800000000 years old. and there was so many different funky species. we couldn't manage without them. we used them to make everything from medications to use bread and construction materials. and that's not all they could for

ah, by says a gray marker full meters than white ones. every 10 centimeters. how tall is the tree? full. 19. all foot, long, few. mm. it annoyed, say, okay, make a note in february 2016 microbiologist like a quarter planted around 200 alder beach and willow trees in this former uranium mining area. the soil here is contaminated with heavy metals. 6 in a few years time, the trees could be filled for firewood if they grow well, although that can't be taken for granted with this soil is come here, you can't really call it soil of healthy soil, looks very different. after uranium mining was discontinued, fresh soil was brought in as part of the clean up process. but growing fruit and vent here, it's still on the question. then there with there put grid, what's the soil has a lot of rubles ice which shows that the plants like this area and, and once they reach down here, they're sandy material deposited in the last ice age versus infancy in that if i

site up golardo 11 and here you find practically no roots at all. this section has a low ph value, so plants don't like it does highest flung smooth and diesel, but eisner's a low ph value indicates acidic soil in this environment, toxic heavy metals that are usually bound in the soil dissolve and see and to the ground water where they're absorbed my plants, this being fiduciary virulence. we therefore try to mix in soil containing a bit of lime. this serves as a ph buffer. so the plants have a bitter, even if not ideal habitat off to my limbs, home of ambient bisset and leans compton. in other words, the soil is neutralized, but that's not all. the scientists from germany, sienna university, have to do. in order to bind the heavy metals in the soil, they convert them back into solid form using fungi. dad, he peered so in nature as an ios ake association, cease, fungi,

bring on water and minerals to trees, effectively functioning as a filter. anything not passed on by the fun guy will not be absorbed by the trees else going on. so in this case, is happy we have a low it transfer of heavy metals than without fungi and ending bomb its own appear in order to boost microbial activity in the soil. the researchers introduce special micro organisms every year in via fin. in my florist you find specific fun guy under specific trees? well, with some it's obvious like the large, the letter o, but poly pulled, i'm it books, accusation. so we have to look for mushrooms that can communicate to this tree, these embalmed aden. could their experiments have work best with the alder trees, with mater results from the birch and poor results from the willows. but that might change over the next few years, which is why the team is continuing with its research. they believe that inoculating the soil with fungi and bacteria will bear fruit, vermont, and aka,

grow. so grow back if you don't plow afield will be what it takes about 40 years for the microbiology to resemble that of a natural grassland, sophia. so if we introduce micro organisms here, we're saving practically the 40 years, it would take for the microbiology to get used to the new ecosystem. your book was as team of wound up, but even the non poison it's types of mushrooms growing and these parts are not suitable for eating. due to the heavy metals they absorb from the soil. the contaminants are only released when the fungi decompose. although at least and concentrations that the trees can cope with these days, lithium is an integral part of life, as we know it. it's in computers, laptops, mobile phones, electric cars, and all sorts of other battery powered devices. the advantage of

lithium batteries is that they lightweight and long lasting now with immobility on the rise demand for this useful metal is throwing rapidly. lithium found in nature is always bonded with other elements ah, dance due to its electron configuration, it has a single valence electron that is easily given up to form chemical bonds separating it from those chemical partners is difficult. but in south america it's different. this region is home to more than half the world's lithium reserves. it's found under the white crusts of salt lakes, bound together with the salt. in this form, it's easier to extract water from the lake is pumped out and allowed to evaporate, leaving behind a lithium rich substance. chemicals are then used to separate the lithium and

some of those chemicals are toxic. another problem, when the salt water is pumped out of the lake, it draws out ground water to a big problem in this arid region. just one battery for a medium range electric car uses between 3 and 12000 leaders of water. that's up to $82.00 full bath tubs. when these, if things keep going, this right, within 5 or 6 years will have lost so much water that this entire area will become a desert. it's not just agricultural livestock, farming that will suffer and in fact i'm human life will no longer be possible here and mentally has seen them. ok, so a high price to pay for our batteries and in europe to conservationists are concerned about the impact of lithium mining in the hills of northern portugal mining on a grand scale could start soon. portugal has sufficient deposits to supply the whole of europe. lulu but residents of the affected region of

barroso fear for the future of their land. next cause i mean i thank yet does inter matty mean the mine will be just 200 meters from here. if we go up to that house, we would see the mind from there, with ballpark vista, regardless the out of its evil. it's going to ruin the water here as a star, and all the dust from the mine will cover the fresh grasses in the meadows. and spoil them all, the better they are with us with our land simply won't be of the same quality any more freshman. it's even possible that the water would disappear completely. and then even this green grass would no longer grow here. but as electric vehicles become more wide spread, demand for lithium will grow. right now europe imports its lithium. germany is also looking to see whether it could cover its own needs and the future. germany has 2700000 tons of lithium and the most in europe. many e u members have deposits,

but mining them is either difficult or too expensive. germany's reserves can be found. for example, thousands of meters below the river rind trapped in underground springs of boiling water. scientists are hoping to extract the lithium using geothermal power, the ideas to pump the hot water from deep under ground to use it for heating and electricity. extracting the lithium at the same time was a leads him to see him though. if the him that we produce here in the upper ryan valley is completely c o 2 free. so unlike the lithium from australia or south america, which generates a lot of seo to see through the long transport routes and the production method. it sounds good, but whether it's economically feasible is still unclear. recycling, lithium would be another way to cut imports and the e u wants to gradually boost recycling rates. ready

but extracting lithium from recycled batteries is also energy intensive. and once again requires chemicals. right now it's hardly worth it because despite price fluctuations, fresh, lithium from south america is just too affordable. what we asked view is on social media, what they're doing to preserve resources. these are some of the interesting responses we got jeez lane. a santi from brazil replied, i reuse supermarket back several times, but i strongly believe that brazil should stop exploiting wood to europe. francesco, his son is tip, is reducing consumption. if less is produced in the 1st place, we don't need to think about how it can be recycled. we benefit by becoming better off and making the wealthy, less rich genuine dish raise them, suggest separating waste watering plants. first thing in the morning and recycling

paper plastics and cardboard j ricardo b p writes, i'm starting to produce my own food and use a system for combusting. so that organic waste is bio degraded and like many others, spirit c, r, wonders if it wouldn't be better to replace economic systems that benefit only a few and leave many behind. thanks for your comments. we waste resources in the long run. the consequences will be catastrophic. so it's vital to switch to more sustainable practices. recycling textiles, for example, can help reduce water intensive cotton production. we can also re thing, plastic production and use. it's derived from crude oil, making it environmentally damaging and unfit for the future. an entrepreneur in thailand make single use dishes from rice drill, a byproduct of rice production. and there are many more ways we can switch to

sustainable materials. this is a brand new material. and then it is lucas foreman who is one of its inventors can replace genuine leather which is made from animal himes. robertson was sort of grown a sample of our leather alternative. it's unique worldwide because it's c o. 2 neutral, completely plastic free and entirely plant basements with lucas foreman is going to meet july $48.00. the frankfurt based designer normally works with real leather. he uses it to make belts and bags in his studio. he has promised to look at the new material and try it out with the northbrook that doesn't. that's what you were talking about on the phone. yes, exactly. okay. yeah. good that i'm always cautious about letters. substitute

tinsley about my experiences haven't been great. me robin's good enough, what i do is very work intensive with an alternative often aren't up to it from, from the it was most nevertheless, joelle is interested in taking a closer look at the plant based leather. for him, it's important that it can be worked in just the same way as conventional leather. for example, you have to be able to cut it as cleanly as this real leather. smooth inches are important. schneider to say good, a cuts very well. you don't need to, not all real others are as good as that. the cut edge is smooth. so the wasn't, that looks really good passage from addition off a promising 1st response. the designer is going to put the new material to a few more tests. the vague and leather was developed at the technical university of darmstadt. the inventor spent 6 years on research and then founded a start up. the new material is based on hemp waste. the company gets its raw

materials from a german company that grows the plants for have seeds, and to make cbd products as an environmental, sanders, farmers are interested in the top 20 centimeters, janet, the stalks a shredded on. don't make them any money lesson of the damage with this hem. straw is left to lie in a fail for 6 months to make it nice and soft and vice versa. we put it into this machine and it produces al raw material. the media all button for reasons of patent protection, they're unable to reveal exactly how they turn this hemp waste into a leather substitute. the adventurers will only reveal that they soften the hemp fibers and press them into flat lengths of material. everything of natural ad nontoxic. as always con, i like in a work here in the laboratory without using any gloves, but we don't use any chemicals at all. so natalia's, nothing dubious. everything that happens here is entirely plant based. gonzales

ellis because of their completely plant based material is still at the development stage until they can produce large quantities. they want to find out where it might be used. potential clients are the furniture and car industries and the fashioned industry. of course that's white. joanna, fully a's opinion counts. there is no problem cutting it, and it can also be cut at an angle. 3 is my here. mm hm. i'm going to try getting rid of the edge now across and graph income i discontinued of and that doesn't work very well. the room for improvement there. this is how it works with leather. so if you try to finish the hamp based leather, the fibers fray me through this. now i'm going to try out a small piece that doesn't require much work as smartphone case,

which i know had you know. oh, joanna fully cuts 2 pieces out of the new material, glues them in place, and then machine so as them together. what no one wants to see is any rips or tears . lucasfilm on is key to here with the leather expert has to say all and look at this thing to come forward, said or good now it would really well with her working the leather went very well and it was really fun. working with this material, who continued, it works the same as my real leather as a walk, right? it's turned out really well and we can see how it feels them got there was some small minus points on that. the edge can't be finished as easily as leather leader . the color is still, well, i don't know to what extent you can develop different hughes that are more hop to. it would be really nice if the customers could choose different colors on, but it's an interesting material and i could definitely imagine offering it

alongside my other products if you informed me before synchronous here. midterm, yes, of the inventors of the leather alternative have taken another step out of the laboratory towards production. there are vast landfills. sites like this all over the world. these mountains of waste could be reduced. if we switch to buy a degradable materials and recycled, more garbage dumps, stink, and pollute the atmosphere, the ground, and the ground water, the trash we produce, also ends up in oceans and nature. and what about in space? that's what window geraldo from brazil. buns to know what's being done about debris in space. the earth is surrounded by a cloud of space junk. more than a 1000000 pieces of space, debris orbit, our blue planet. most of them are just a few centimeters in size,

but there were also non functional satellites and jet rockets tumbling through space. due to their high velocities, even small pieces of debris can cause extensive damage. every rocket launch adds more waste spaceship components that are no longer needed like used rockets are simply jettisoned in february of 2009 to satellite smashed into each other. the crash created thousands of bits of debris which could potentially collide with other satellite. that's why large pieces of space drunk need to be cleared from orbit. researchers have been working for years to remove debris from earth's orbit. they aim to achieve this with the aid of a satellite. it will either collect debris with an intelligent robotic arm and

pulled the debris towards it. or it will rely on net much like a fisherman does. when fishing the debris removing satellite will propel the space trunk towards earth in a controlled trajectory. when the debris enters the atmosphere, friction causes it to burn up. in june of 2018, the satellite remove debris was launched into orbit from the international space station. it was meant to test various methods of collecting space debris. but that turned out to be quite a challenge. objects move and behave much differently in outer space. the 1st official mission to remove debris from orbit is planned for the year 2025. the clear space one satellite will be sent up to a to meet a large adapter from a european vega rocket. the satellite will take hold of it and re directed towards

earth on a path where it will destroy itself upon re entry into the atmosphere. if i will let is read why i do you have a science question? if so send us a video text or voice message. if we answer it on the show, we'll send you a small gift as a thank you. so come on, does, does this under water? will it looks it delicate that much of marine life isn't bad shape? climate change means the oceans are getting warmer and many species are struggling to adapt. industrial fishing practice is also taking their toll and resulting in habitat degradation. one 3rd of the world's fish stocks are now over fished. and it's not only because of how much we it is also due to demand full fish meal to feed farmed fish. reset is

a haunted worth developing alternatives. this insect could be the solution to a common problem in fish farming or aquaculture originally from south america. the black soldier fly is now at home all over the world. when mature, the flies don't have a mouth or a stinger, so they can't spread diseases. they also reproduce very quickly if conditions are right, a female lays around a 1000 eggs. the resulting larvae could become an excellent substitute for fish mill. first, the eggs have to be harvested before being left to grow on a nutritious substrate. hello. i look on 300 grams of eggs can yield one. toma larva has the really, really resource efficient. you grow very quickly and they could be produced regionally come on. so they're very economical source of protein. you know, it's like a lot of the protein and fish monitor is currently sourced in the sea.

every year 30000000 tons of fish are taken from the oceans just to make animal feet . it's an ecological disaster. such over fishing is causing wine spread devastation to marine habitats. farm insect is a startup spin off of munich technological university that aims to produce regionally sourced fish fema. it's 3 founders have set up their pilot project on a trout farm. october 9th of feed for the larvae is waste from a nearby flower mill. the young larvae are sprinkled on it, and the trees are then stored in a warm and humid climate controlled unit. as the larvae grow, they turn everything into compost. they're now picky, felt neat anything. on the edmons video, la from dishwater, so dawkins, we chose to black soldier fly. his larva are able to process the broadest range of food on the speech by the us. particularly important for our aim of creating

a regional nutrients eyeglass. stephanie foster, she enables he practically anything makes him perfect. is he deaf of perfect gag meant? after a week the larvae are one and a half centimeters long and ready to be harvested. just 1.2 kilos of feed yield one whole kilo of larvae. it's an efficient and d centralized way to produce protein. tolmas coon and both gung vesta maya have spent over a year on their mission to make fish water on a regional and resource efficient basis. but they do have one cern fish have an excellent sense of smell and can be rather choosy and their culinary tastes. under the sun as a fish might refuse to eat the lava, which will be awful heavy after all that hard work and i will accept her to predatory fish like these trout need plenty of protein,

which is why fish feed contains up to 20 per cent meal. from deep sea fishing helmet, vedic and hence the various institute of fisheries. he would welcome the prospect of less fish, milan, the feed, and not just for ecological reasons. fish would are marked in there are 4 key for the read is the largest cost factor in modern agriculture inclusion. up to 70 percent of the house was he was or interested not only in the quality of a v t to school, but also its cost effectiveness of to describe these into the among various vill him been. dish is also keen to see the results of the pilot project. he's an expert in animal nutrition and has been advising the black soldier, fly farmers from the outset. even do he sick on fish. they're here a lot about feeding live insects to fish and so much on that. so let's see if it actually works out we have on that's the acid test you nadia program. so here goes

it's feeding time and the 1st scope of larvae is served. but the fish just ignore them, no response. perhaps the larvae aren't to their liking then suddenly there's a feeding frenzy. i am a virus i over there. thank you. if you can speak, i said, as it's not, you know, i'm impressed fish, it will cost to fish are hungry and we've given them a larger so they're getting full blank some. but it clearly works above identity. over the next few weeks helmet vedic and will be checking to see how will the fish thrive on this new feed. that means measuring their weight and assessing their state of health on whether, you know,

that's important information because the larvae is nutritional value changes shortly before they reach the pupil stage. was this designed with it's crucial to harvest the love it just the right moment just to make them especially appealing to the fish if all goes well and the project is a success larvae, it could end up replacing fish meal and saving fish farmers up to 40 percent of their feed costs. that's it for this week's edition of tomorrow to day. doing this again next week until then stay curious about the world around you, but i ah, with

ah to 77 percent for many young people in nigeria. the picture does not mean to look more people are using drop down anywhere else in the well, we're on the ground asking,

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and that's how they can also go terribly. watch it now on you tube. ah, some people don't care about me because they don't see my beauty. some people don't care about me because they think i have nothing to give but 2000000000 people due to then i am every day at home, the a food that livelihood that day by day i do. and so does everything i gave to 1000000000 people care about me named me and now i need you.

ah ah ah, this is dw, live from berlin, a wave of protests, unlike any scene in china recently. dozens of demonstrations against harsh cove at 19 restrictions.