Talk:Bioremediation/Archive 1

Opening line

I'm both a Wikipedia and bioremediation newbie, but I think it would make sense to first summarize what bioremediation IS before launching into the different subtypes. Something along the lines of "Bioremediation is the process of using organisms to decontaminate an area or material. Depending on the pollutant, a variety of organisms, typically microorganisms, are used; their natural metabolic processes are harnessed to collect, break down, or otherwise render safe the targeted pollutant." 67.203.116.130 (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

The Energy Economics of Bioremediation

Is it conceivable to have an efficient process of harvesting energy from bioremediation and biodegredation of disposed waste? The materials are reduced to base minerals and the harvested energy would be stored battery-style or used in some other process?

Jed Haas 15:39, 2 March 2007 (UTC) Jed Haas

First response

It is difficult to concentrate homogeneously distributed contaminants within the soil for disposal in such a way as to gain energy from doing this. However, it is quite possible to have photosynthetically powered plants and bacteria/algae which can concentrate heavy metal ions in a form which could be accessed for disposal. Plants which actively uptake heavy metal ions COULD do this, albeit, over a PERIOD OF YEARS - with colder climates taking longer to decontaminate via such methods (phytoremediation).

ConcernedScientist 11:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Glass bioremediation

If there is significant glass contamination of an area (for example, a former brown field site/landfill site which is going to be used for new housing), what is the best method of remediation (is bioremediation even possible with glass!?). Here, I believe that mechanical remediation would be necessary (however, mechanical remediation is probably profoundly expensive).

ConcernedScientist 11:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Red Mercury?

The Genetic Enginering setion has this: "The use of genetic engineering to create organisms specifically designed for bioremediation has great potential.[3] The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans (the most radioresistant organism known) has been modified to consume and digest toluene and ionic mercury from highly radioactive nuclear waste.[4]"

It looks to me as though two or more stories may have been combined here; and the reference doesn't seem to match. There was a mention of toluene resistant/consuming bacteria two or more decades ago. As I recall, this was said to have been isolated from bacteria living in the vicinity of a disused gas plant. D. radiodurans is rather popular with the panspermia community, so there may be one or two factoids floating around which it would also be good to identify.

Also, isn't 'ionic mercury' (which presumably means mercury which isn't stably combined with other elements, as in dental amalgam, for example) something of a problem even in its own right? It doesn't need to be radioactive to be dangerous? Davy p (talk) 10:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Odour and air pollution control

I recently completed a study regarding the use of biotechnology to bioredeem polluted air. As this is a reasonably well established area of bioremediation (several published books and the like), I am proposing that I add a section to this page detailing what exactly is involved and recent developments. however as i am only new to wikipedia, i would first like to get some feedback, so does anyone have any comments? if noone replies in the next couple of days i will go ahead and add a section. Thanks.Gumbacious (talk) 16:29, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

No Criticism Section?

Why isn't there a criticism section? Is it not conceivable that there are at least some situations in which bioremediation may not help a situation, but actually make it worse, or introduce new, exotic organisms that destabilize ecosystems as bad or worse (or at least differently) than the original pollutants? And of course, from the opposite prospective, I'm sure there are many cases when corporations do not consider it to be cost effective or reject it for other reasons. Shanoman (talk) 03:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Criticism and controversy sections are not encouraged as they can lead to a non-neutral tone. See WP:STRUCTURE. - Shiftchange (talk) 15:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What organisms are involved, and are they all naturally-occurring?

Why aren't the species names of any of the organisms involved mentioned here? Is that top-secret information, and if so, is it patented and copyrighted? By the way they talk on Fox News (which I am often in a captive audience of), one would think that petroleum-eating microbes occur naturally everywhere in the ocean. I suspect that at least some strains are synthetic (biologically-engineered), in fact, I'm almost positive I learned about something like this being "invented" when I was in grade school back in the 1980s. If so, why is it now being called "natural"? Perhaps there are both naturally-occurring "oil-eaters" and "enhanced" synthetic ones, but I think this article should cover this. Shanoman (talk) 03:44, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Microbes to clean up oil spills

Appearantly, Bacillus subtilis is used for this, see http://www.pnas.org/content/106/43/18109.short Mention in article 80.200.230.223 (talk) 12:04, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Oyster mushroom

On the assertion "In one conducted experiment, a plot of soil contaminated with diesel oil was inoculated with mycelia of oyster mushrooms;..." there is no appropriate bibliographic reference supporting it. A reference is required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daimi (talk • contribs) 20:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Millitary Pollutants

Should the bacteria which consume metals like steel and the plants that bio-remediate explosives in contaminated soil be mentioned, or does the military industrial complex not pollute anything? I had no idea the green camo (the original camouflage patterns were developed by Buddhist monks) was really just so they can sneak up on trees and give them surprise hugs. CensoredScribe (talk) 19:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Kapoor study on efflux pumps to filter surface water of anti-biotics

@Smokefoot: In this edit you deleted reference to this study that appears to me relevant to the subject matter of bioremeditation. You said that it is "spam", but I looked at the study and it doesn't look like junk mail to me. It's unquestionably a real study with a useful application, although not widely cited by others, it did make into this newsletter of Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics of Tufts University. It was also cited in this review which I have not tried to obtain yet. It is also cited in the Urban Water Reuse Handbook here. Googling of the title gives numerous other hits. So I am not clear on why it was deleted. Can you please explain? --David Tornheim (talk) 10:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi David: thanks for the note. I will address your related questions here, which I hope gives an acceptable answer.

• Wikipedia is a mechanism for disseminating information and knowledge, which is very noble and the reason I support it so strongly. Wikipedia is also a mechanism for folks to advance their careers by promoting their names and their work, which is unfortunate, misguided, and presents a distorted picture of the knowledge landscape. Its just human nature, not evil. But in any case, we editors actively discourage ref spammers or citation spammers, otherwise they would overwhelm all of these articles in an effort to advance their careers.
• Next comes the fact that normal people (and newly published authors) underestimate the huge flux of publications. Its amazing. So here we go: 35,568 articles, patents, and reports have appeared on the topic of "bioremediation" according to Chemical Abstracts Service. In the past 5 years, 13005 papers etc appeared alone, of those, 1226 are classified as reviews, which satisfies the sources targeted by Wikipedia according to the guideline WP:SECONDARY. So if one (me, you, Kapoor) really wants to advance this article (vs advance our career), we would draw content from among these reviews.
• So there are strong statistical reasons indicating that Kapoor et al are not reporting the best or most general overviews of these important topics. Instead, they are editing Wikipedia with the intention of advancing their careers. And we actively discourage that kind of behavior. Over and over and over again. --Smokefoot (talk) 14:30, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposed merger from Mycoremediation

The Mycoremediation article at present does not adequately explain that sequestering toxic compounds is not the same as destroying them. (Please don't eat mushrooms that are full of heavy metals!) It is a short article, and I propose that it be merged here, because this page provides a better place for that distinction to be made clear. Many issues of bioremediation apply to a number of organisms, or to a mixture of organisms, and a section on mycoremediation here is all that seems needed.

• Support - as nom. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:02, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support - I've had a look for sources, and there's very little that's at all reliable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:07, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 11:32, 23 April 2017 (UTC)