Bioremediation: A Sustainable Tool for Environmental Management – A Review

Abstract

Bioremediation is considered as one of the safer, cleaner, cost effective and environmental friendly technology for decontaminating sites which are contaminated with wide range of pollutants. Various industrial and anthropogenic activities resulted in increased contaminated sites due to unawareness regarding production, use and disposal of hazardous substances. The process of bioremediation uses various agents such as bacteria, yeast, fungi, algae and higher plants as major tools in treating oil spills and heavy metals present in the environment. A continuous search for the new biological forms is required to regulate increasing pollution and environmental problems faced by man residing in an area. As microorganism shows wide range of mechanisms, there are still few mechanisms which are not known, therefore bioremediation is still considered as a developing technology. Thus, there is an urgent need to for us to review and modify the available options for environmental clean up. The objective of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive review on various sources of bioremediation agents and their limitations in treating pollutants present in the environment.