An device that turns contaminated soil into harmless material has turned heads in the United Kingdom, a country now seen as saving its honors for those helping the environment or fostering a renewable-energy future.

A device understood to have been thought up by Dr. Colin Hills and Dr. Paul Carey converts land poisoned by industrial use into “harmless pebbles”.

Dubbed “carbon capture technology”, the Unvisersity of Greenwich researchers’s work is seen by peers as potentially having a “drastic” impact on climate change.

Carbon dioxide in the industrial waste is captured in the pebbles or pellets and now a start-up company has been started around the machine. The company is said to have “significant future potential” by a judge from the U.K. government’s Technology Strategy Board.