Background and technological history
Currently approximately 65,000 chemicals are marketed and sold in the United States. Of these, thousands are defined as hazardous or toxic, and could present a health risk to humans and the environment if not disposed of properly. Unfortunately, thousands of antecedent hazardous waste sites have been identified, and estimates are that thousands more will be identified in the coming decades. Many more sites are not abandoned, but involve land where companies currently operate. Release of these chemicals into the environment comes about through a variety of events, including illegal dumping by chemical companies and companies using chemicals in their manufacturing processes; inadequate local, state, and federal government regulations regarding waste disposal; and inadequate or lax enforcement of existing laws.
Over the past twenty years, the American public has become much more aware of and concerned about environmentally contaminated industrial...
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© 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Chaparian, M.G. (1999). Bioremediation. In: Environmental Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4494-1_39
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