Botanical cleanup crews: using plants to tackle polluted water and soil - phytoremediation

Science News, July 20, 1996 by Tina Adler

Environmentalists, often critical of big businesses' low-cost cleanup schemes, are giving cautious support to phytoremediation. "The methods can be used in certain circumstances," asserts Robert W. Hastings, a Sierra Club spokesperson at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. "Though it certainly won't be a cure-all.

We need to cut down on the production of contaminants up front. But where we do have cleanup problems, phytoremediation does have potential."