Organic Compost as Catalyst or Mediator for Speedy and Cost Effective Bioremediation

Abstract

Bioremediation (the use of living organism, part or their products) has been reported to be an environmental friendly and cheap remediation method which is applicable in large and small scale but, the major problem facing this mechanism is the establishment of a particular biological entity in a heavily polluted soil. The soil supplementation/amendment during bioremediation was suggested to alleviate such difficulty, compost supplements role in bioremediation is majorly ‘biostimulatory’ a term used to explain the addition of nutrients for effective and active biological activities. Compost supplements have been a commonly used practice in agricultural practices for ages for enhancement of soil fertility and productivity but it is now known that this practice also enriches the microbial population in soil which promotes soil remediation as they act upon the organic waste to release its nutrients. This practice as well have been reported to enhance biological degradation, mineralization or extraction of a pollutant for clean-up/remediation of a polluted soil. Today, bioremediation mechanism which combines action of two or more organisms have been gaining more interests, application of soil amendments in such setting may serve as fuel to run the system feeding both entities the nutrients, creates environment conducive for their survival and enhances tolerance as well as responses. In this chapter, we gave accounts of biostimulatory and bioaugmentation mechanisms brought about by soil amendment using composts, we considered different examples and their impacts on soil bioremediation mechanisms.