Contaminated Land and Bio-Remediation - Environmental Biotechnology: Theory and Application - page 112

which approach will tend to be the more commonly used for any given country.
This obviously also means that the commercial considerations can, once again,
act as a limit on the practical uptake of biotech solutions. Given the typical nature
of remediation projects, this inevitably means that the choice between bioremedi-
ation and any of the commonly available established 'competitor' technologies,
such as containment and encapsulation, excavation for disposal, vacuum extrac-
tion, chemical treatment, solvent washing and incineration is not solely based on
efficacy or applicability.
Closing Remarks
While there is considerable overlap in technology costs, the economic element
remains very largely identifiable in the general trends of use and, of course,
biotechnology is not applicable to all forms of pollution. However, global changes
in attitude as much as in the escalating costs of special waste disposal have seen
the situation for bioremediation improve over the last decade, particularly as the
whole concept of sustainable brown-field reclamation has gained momentum.
One major corollary of this has been to see clean-up biotechnologies become
recognised as effective and competitive alternatives; it is a trend that would seem
to be set to continue in the future.
References
BioWise, UK Department of Trade and Industry (2001) Contaminated Land
Remediation: A Review of Biological Technology , Crown copyright.
Brooks, J.R., Barnard, H.R., Coulombe, R. and McDonnell, J.J. (2010) Ecohy-
drologic separation of water between trees and streams in a Mediterranean
climate, Nature Geoscience , 3 , 100 - 104.
Doick, K.J., Pediaditi, K., Moffat, A.J. and Hutchings, T.R. (2009) Defining
the sustainability objectives of brownfield regeneration to greenspace. Inter-
national Journal of Management and Decision Making , 10 , 282 - 302.
SuRF, Sustainable Remediation Forum UK (2010) A Framework for Assessing
the Sustainability of Soil and Groundwater Remediation , Final Report .