Bioremediation: Step towards Improving Human Welfare
Parminder Kaur
Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India.
Leena Parihar *
Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The term “bioremediation” refers to the process by which toxic contaminants such as xenobiotics are reduced into non-toxic by-products (carbon dioxide and water or organic acids and methane) with the help of biological agents. Most of the organisms’ especially human beings are continuously compromising their health with environmental contamination, which is increasing rapidly because of increasing population, industrialization and urbanization. Due to scarcity of resources and simultaneous advances in Science and Technology- human beings have started to exploit more natural resources thereby causing damage to the environment. An ideal solution to get rid of environmental contamination is through Bioremediation has become the most effective innovative low cost technology to come along that uses biological systems for the treatment of polluted environment. This technology includes both in situ (occurs at the site of contamination) and ex-situ (contaminant is taken out of the site of contamination and treated somewhere else) strategies. This paper provides an overview on environmental problems related to xenobiotics control strategies, its limitations and varieties of approaches of bioremediation.
Keywords: Bioremediation, biotechnology, in situ, environment