Decontamination or Consolidation of Metal-Contaminated Soils by Biological Means

Abstract

All industrialized and nonindustrialized countries have used and are deliberately using heavy metals for industrial, agricultural, and domestic purposes without any consideration in advance of the treatment of the remnant metals. As a consequence, heavy metals are being deposited widespread in the environment. The metal deposition chain starts with the remnants of mining activities in the form of mine tailings, spoil heaps, and dumps, in Southern, Central, and Western Europe, often dating back to Greek and Roman minings (Ernst 1974, 1990). Insufficient precautions for stored ore dust and for a strong reduction in metal emission during grinding, smelting, and processing of ores and metal products and refining has polluted and still pollutes the surroundings of smelters, blast furnaces, and other metal-processing industries either by dust and particulate matter or by metal-enriched effluents (Ernst and Joosse-van Damme 1983, 1989). Environmental pollution was and is independent of political regimes, and unfortunately, in many cases, even independent of the technological conditions of a country, as the metal pollution around metal smelters has demonstrated in former West Germany (Ernst 1972; MAGS 1977), former East Germany (Fiedler and Rosier 1987), Bulgaria (Tsuldschijan 1978), former Yugoslavia (Djuric et al. 1971), and Poland (Fabiszewski et al. 1983; Greszta 1988). Although mining and processing activities have often been finished for some time, tailings and dumps are still scarcely covered by vegetation (Ernst 1974; Banásová 1976) and are exposed to water and wind erosion, thus extending the pollution of the environments.