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Feeding Industrial Wastes to Microorganisms
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18191 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1990 |
2,640 Words |
| Author
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Gerald R. Campbell and Sharon Lynn Campbell
Gerald R. Campbell is a research scientist who prepares
biotechnology market reports and writes free-lance. Sharon
Lynn Campbell is a health and safety professional who has
written for both professional and lay publications. |
Industrial societies have been pouring wastes into the environment for more than two centuries. The cleanup of these wastes is now costing the United States alone more than $30 billion per year, and the bill is growing at about 15 percent a year. This reflects not only the increase in the amount of wastes generated and their diversity, but also a growing concern about the environmental and health effects of these wastes.
Yet in terms of biological history, the period of industrial waste generation has been but a short time. Microbes, microscopic organisms, have been present on earth for more than three billion years. Not only have these microorganisms already mastered energy cycles for processing thousands of naturally occurring molecules, but they also possess a remarkable facility for adapting to any new molecules that may be released into the environment. Additional powers of breaking down complex molecules are contained in the fungi.
Thus, while many waste handlers are extending the limits of current technology with better containment, cleaner incinerators, and tighter landfills - and other are trying to reduce the amount of wastes released - still others are seeking a more natural way to return man's waste products to nature.
The deliberate use of microbes for waste treatment has gone on for centuries, with the composting of sewage and the use of bacteria to concentrate copper out of mine tailing runoff. [See "Metals Bioprocessing," THE WORLD & I, April 1989.] Such uses are very limited, because they rely on naturally occurring microorganisms and are generally slow and labor-intensive.
Ways to improve bioremediation microorganisms
Finding ways to speed up microbial degradation of waste products and extend the range of what can be degraded has turned into a field of active research, especially over the past five years. A great deal of research has been carried out in how to make already-existing organisms perform better, through increased aeration, providing additional water and nutrients, providing chemicals that induce the degradative enzymes needed to degrade certain wastes, and so forth. [See "Microecosystem Treatment of Hazardous Wastes," THE WORLD & I, October 1990.] But even with theses improvements, there will remain some classes of waste that cannot be degraded and some kinds of sites where the process will remain too slow or too
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