Phytoremediation

I think it is a flagging topic. The method is to clean up the land which is contaminated pollutants by using bioremediation. And now I am eager to discus about phytoremediation that is a part of bioremediation methods.

As I have already told about bioremediation, but not just the microbes and fungi, the plant also can be used to eliminating the chemical waste by the sub-bioremediation called phytoremediation. And the plant will process the chemical waste to change them to be oxygen.

Phytoremediation is a mouthful to say and tough to spell correctly. It is a term that was coined by Dr. Ilya Raskin who was sent as part of the IAEA taskforce to clean up after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster. It is basically, a way to clean soil and groundwater that has been contaminated with radiation or heavy metals by using certain green plants. These green plants extract and contain harmful elements within their ecosystem and thus remove them from the soil and water.

Remember when I had assignment at school about bioremediation, I found an interesting topic about phytoremediation by using a bamboo. In Japan, it’s about 300 km from the Fukushima Power plant, and every day Japanese society sees disturbing images of smoke pouring out of the number 3 and 2 reactors. Japanese society also sees farmers and fishermen complaining about the loss of their livelihoods because of the nuclear disaster. The quicker they can get the reactor under control and start to clear up the better. And they thought about how to clean up the environment from pollution, they used phytoremediation.

After the nuclear disaster hemp was extensively planted around the worst affected areas. Hemp like bamboo grows quickly and helped to reduce levels of iodine, cesium-137, strontium, and plutonium from the soil. Since bamboo grows everywhere in Japan already and requires no inputs of fertilizers and pesticides to flourish, it is the ideal candidate for phytoremediation. And of course, afterwards the bamboo can be used for a whole plethora of purposes. Bamboo represents some advantages versus the traditional water plants such as, the same level of treatment, and lower density for plantation (1 plant/m² instead of 6-11 plants/m²), and also maintain green all the year round, “Phragmites Australls” becomes brown in the winter period and give a bad aspect to the unit during 4-5 months/year, and there’s no competition of other plants when in South Europe, Phragmites Australls can be dominated by other grasses, and the last is a less maintenance.

In conclusion, Phytoremediation employs the use of plants, alone or together with their associated microorganisms, to degrade, contain or stabilize various environmental contaminants in soil, water, and air. Bamboo may be used to decontaminate soil and water by phytoremediation, a natural way of removing pollutants using plants, restoring soil to statutory safe limits.

Bioremediation

We have already known that the environment is contaminated pollution since 2000 until now. The scientists tried to solve the environment problems by using bioremediation methods, why? It is because bioremediation is safe to the environment and humankind, lower cost, and also permanents to environment because it makes the contaminant degraded. Do you that Japan use phytoremediation methods to clean up the nuclear leak? Yes, phytoremediation is a part of bioremediation to clean up the nuclear leak. Phytoremediation method is cleaning up pollution through the use of plants and their microorganisms. In Japan, the scientists have still processed the phytoremediation by using a bamboo. They use this method because it is safe for the environment and can defect the global warming.

The population in this world has increased; therefore it creates more big problems. Like climate change, pollution, mutation, and chemical waste. The problems become worldwide; the estimated number of contaminated sites is significant. It is now widely recognized that contaminated land is a potential threat to human health, and it is continual discovery over recent years has led to international efforts to remedy many of these sites, either as a response to the risk of adverse health of environmental effect caused by contamination to enable the site to be redeveloped for use. One of the methods is to recover the environmental by using bioremediation process.

Bioremediation allows natural processes to clean up harmful chemicals in the environment. Microscopic “bugs” or microbes and fungi that live in soil and groundwater like to eat certain harmful chemical, such as those found in gasoline and oil spills. When microbes completely digest these chemicals, they change them into water and harmless gases such as carbon dioxide. 

The good idea is to use bioremediation to treat the environment which is contaminated with pollutants. Why? Because it is made a promising approach, such as, it would permanence, it is because contaminant was degraded, and it had potentially low cost, 60-90% less than other technologies.