ABSTRACT
The use of plants in environmental remediation has been called “green remediation,” “phytoremediation,” “botanical bioremediation,” “phytoextraction,” etc. Phytoremediation employs plants to remove contaminants from polluted soils which require decontamination under the supervision of a regulatory agency. The commercial strategy is to use phytoremediation as a lower cost alternative to current expensive engineering methods. Soil remediation technology is needed to reverse risk to humans or the environment from metals in soil, both geochemical metal enrichment and anthropogenic soil contamination. Phytoextraction employs plant species able to accumulate abnormally high quantities of elements from soils. The commercial strategy of phytomining is to concentrate metals from low-grade ores or mine and smelter wastes and then sell the ash as an alternative metal concentrate. Phytoextraction would only be applied to soils or ores that cannot be economically enriched by traditional mining and beneficial technology. Plants which occur only on mineralized or contaminated soils have been known for centuries.
