Bioremediation offers an effective, ethical, and economical alternative to standard cleanups

摘要

No, it's not "the bugs that ate New Hampshire." It's bioremediation―a relatively new process that uses bacteria to neutralize pollutants or transform them into harmless chemical products. The town of Salem, N.H., faced a challenge. A former town-owned wastewater treatment facility decommissioned in 1987 showed signs of soil and groundwater contamination as a result of chlorinated solvents. The town needed to clean the site, but as is the case for many municipalities, had limited financial resources. Bioremediation successfully destroyed the chlorinated solvent mass and saved the town an estimated $2 million in cleanup costs.