In situ bioremediation is a groundwater and soil remediation technology that makes use of indigenous or introduced microorganisms to degrade contaminants in the subsurface. One factor affecting the feasibility of in situ bioremediation is the availability of the contaminant to the microorganisms. It is typically assumed that the contaminant is only available for biodegradation in the aqueous ph...

Development of environmentally benign approaches to remediation of metal-contaminated soils and sewage sludges are needed to replace currently used techniques of either landfilling or metal extraction using caustic or toxic agents. We report results from four application technologies that use a metal-chelating biosurfactant, rhamnolipid, for removal of metals or metal-associated toxicity from m...

Phytoremediation is an emerging green technology that uses plants and their associated microbes to remediate different environments contaminated with various pollutants. Phytoremediation, as an effective soil remediation technology, has gained popularity in the past ten years both in developed and developing countries. The main goal of the current article is to improve the understanding of phyt...

Microwave energy has been widely used in several domestic, industrial, and medical applications such as food sterilization, organic/inorganic syntheses, polymerization, dehydration, analyses and extraction, and biological destruction. This paper summarizes the potential applications of microwave energy as remedial alternatives for various types of wastes and diverse contamination of soils, slud...

Copyright: © 2012 Colin VL. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The world is now confronted with serious problems of environmental contamination, which demand immediate solutions. The extensive pro...

This paper is a report of the performance of a new design of anaerobic bioreactor called the induced-blanket reactor or IBR. The IBR appears to treat high-solids organic matter (manure) effectively in a relatively short time without plugging. A 28 m (7500 gal), heated IBR has been in operation at the Caine Dairy, Utah State University’s dairy farm, since summer 2000. The bioreactor, an upflow-s...

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that exposure to residential radon causes 7,000 to 30,000 lung cancer deaths per year. The EPA has provided extensive technical analysis of and support for their recommended policy response of remediating all homes above a threshold level of radon, but these and other benefit-cost analyses typically do not consider many important dimensions...

BACKGROUND International commitments exist for the safeguarding of health and the prevention of ill health. One of the earliest commitments is the Declaration of Alma-Ata (1978), which provides 5 principles guiding primary health care: equity, community participation, health promotion, intersectoral collaboration and appropriate technology. These broadly applicable international commitments are...

Soil contamination with toxic metals resulting from global industrialization is a serious environmental issue. Industrial activities such as mining of ore, discharge wastewater, excess application fertilizer and pesticide have led to environment heavy cadmium, lead, mercury, copper, arsenic, zinc etc. Complete degradation not possible thus they continuously accumulate in the leading great threa...