Bioremediation is the use of biological organisms to remove pollutants from the environment. The process, which can occur naturally or be induced by humans, is used to clean up oil spills, toxic waste dumping sites and other environmental disasters. Bioremediation is also used to reduce or completely eliminate contaminants in industrial waste streams and natural bodies of water. Essentially, bioremediation allows us to harness the power of nature to help us clean up our own mistakes.Bioremediation can be divided into two categories, in situ and ex situ . In situ bioremediation is when the cleanup process takes place in the environment where the contamination is found. For example, if a hazardous waste site was contaminated with an oil spill, in situ bioremediation would involve cleaning up the oil spill by introducing bacteria into the environment that would consume the oil. Ex situ bioremediation is when the cleanup process takes place in a lab. In this case, scientists would gather as many samples of soil and water from the site as they could and bring them back to a lab where they would introduce certain types of bacteria that would be able to clean up these contaminants.
