How Bioremediation Companies Clean Up Pollution Sites

By Karina Frost





Environmental destruction and habitat degradation is one of the most urgent issues confronting human civilization today. More than a century of unregulated industrial practices left many areas of the world with regions seriously affected by residual toxins that harm both people and ecosystems. Corporations regularly using and producing similar materials today increasingly rely on bioremediation companies when restoration is required.



Unless there is a spectacular oil spill in the oceans, the public is rarely aware of these efforts, which are not confined to water. Many land-based industrial companies also rely on these services, including aircraft and marine manufacturing centers, segments of the food industry, and fuel producers. Current pollution regulations combined with the need to protect employees from toxic exposure drives development.



Remediation solutions use microorganisms to attack and consume concentrated toxins, ultimately transforming them into environmentally safer substances. They literally thrive on pollutants derived from petrochemicals, transforming those toxins into life-sustaining carbon dioxide and clean water. While this occurs naturally in many locations, the time frame usually extends for decades rather than months.



In order to speed that process in groundwater or soil that does not contain enough living microbes to do the job effectively without an assist, the numbers of those creatures can be enhanced by adding them directly to a site. This population explosion can be encouraged by enhancing the conditions that ensure rapid growth, including the temperatures and nutrients that are known to promote bacterial health and reproduction.



The amendments added to land-based pollution sites also encourage the microbes that are already usually present in small quantities. Ranging from molasses and vegetable oil to specific chemicals known to aid oxygen production, they can be effectively placed via well bores rather than surface excavations. While amendments alone do little to remove existing toxins, they provide food and a biological bootstrap to existing bacteria.



If topography or regional climate makes those additions impractical, there are alternate solutions. Soils can be removed, cleaned up, and returned to their original site. In some cases this is accomplished by carefully excavating polluted topsoil, placing it on specially designed platforms or putting it into tanks, and then adding controlled amounts of amendment. Mixing and heating then makes it possible for the microbes to do their job quickly.



The time-frame for restoration varies because all sites are unique, having varying depths of groundwater involvement, levels of toxins, and numbers of helpful microorganisms already present in the soil. Although there have been famously disastrous consequences of introducing non-native plants or animals to ecosystems, adding substantial quantities of bacteria poses little threat. After consuming a food source, they simply die.



On of the primary advantages of using this process to clean up widespread land-based toxins is less local interruption due to increased truck traffic, heavy equipment excavations, and the final work needed to return to surface to its original, healthy condition. For most companies the bioremediation process is less expensive in the long run, leaves behind no additional toxins, and already has a history of helping restore some of the worst locations.









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