Microwarriors
instead of people digging and dumping waste, an army of microorganisms could soon be cleaning up more than 200,000 hectares of contaminated industrial sites in the uk . The uk government has launched a us $21.4 million research program, which will use microorganisms and bacteria to reverse the damage done to polluted land and water.
Plants have recycled carbon dioxide into oxygen for as long as humans have been breathing. Bioremediation pushes this natural process a step further. Living organisms, typically bacteria or plants, can be introduced to contaminated area, and through the metabolic processes, turn toxic substances into simpler, less harmful compounds. Researchers have found a varied array of species that are able to break down common pollutants, such as ddt , pcb s (polychlorinated biphenyls) and chlorinated solvents.
Other bacteria degrade hydrocarbons in oil and gasoline spills, or alter the composition of cancer causing polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Plants, known as phytoremediators, can absorb radioactive elements and heavy metals from spill sites.
In fact, researchers in the us have genetically engineered a microbe capable of eating waste materials at nuclear sites and rendering them less harmful. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, us , created the microbe by transferring genes from one bacterium into the existing Deinococcus radiodurans bug, which is resilient to radiation.
Though as yet untested in the field, the microbe's ability to convert radioactive mercury compounds into the less harmful elemental form has wide implications for the cleanup of nuclear waste dumps. The clean up of contamination is estimated to cost us $300 billion in the us alone.
By funding more research into what the uk government calls bioscience solutions, it hopes to reclaim polluted and contaminated sites for housing and recreation.