Industrial and agricultural activity throughout this century has led to considerable contamination of soil and groundwater resources by hazardous chemicals. The technique of bioremediation uses living organisms--usually bacteria and fungi--to remove pollutants from soil and water with minimal disturbance to these environments. This approach, which is potentially more cost-effective than traditional techniques such as incineration of soils and carbon filtration of water, requires an understanding of how organisms transform chemicals, how they survive in polluted environments, and how they can...

Traditionally the province of chemists, the problem of environmental pollution is increasingly being tackled using methodologies which have a biological basis. This 1998 volume provides a range of examples of how biotechnology can offer sensitive and ecologically relevant new ways of monitoring the presence of biohazards in our environment and, once detected, how these biohazards can be removed in an ecologically safe way through bioremediation. Additional chapters on economic, legislative and policy aspects set the topic in its social context, resulting in a broad-ranging volume of value to...

Traditionally the province of chemists, the problem of environmental pollution is increasingly being tackled using methodologies which have a biological basis. This 1998 volume provides a range of examples of how biotechnology can offer sensitive and ecologically relevant new ways of monitoring the presence of biohazards in our environment and, once detected, how these biohazards can be removed in an ecologically safe way through bioremediation. Additional chapters on economic, legislative and policy aspects set the topic in its social context, resulting in a broad-ranging volume of value to...