There are microscopic mushrooms out there which love to eat oil. Cleaning up a contaminated site could be as simple as seeding an area in the spring with willow cuttings and bacteria to stimulate the growth of these microscopic oil-devouring mushrooms. As the willows grow, they suck up the contaminants in the soil, along with the bacteria. In the fall, the willows are harvested and burnt, leaving cleanup crews with a handful of ashes that contain the heavy metals from the contaminated area. Rinse and repeat for a few seasons and even highly contaminated sites will be clean again. Fungi breath like mammals, in that they inhale oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. They can produce oxalic acid along with other acids and enzymes to grab minerals absorbed from rocks. Starting as mycelium, oil is absorbed by breaking down the carbon-hydrogen bonds and re-manufacturing them into carbohydrates – fungal sugars. Using a combination of mushrooms and microorganisms, The Remediators are able to clean up most lawn contaminants in about six months. It’s a simple process – they till up the soil to within a depth of a meter at most, drop in the vigorously growing compost medium, and wait while the magical microorganisms they’ve introduced literally eat up the contaminants (with no harmful byproducts). This type of technology, if one could call something old as time ‘technology,’ can be used for more than just lawn contaminants. Different forms of microorganisms have been used to clean up everything from oil spills.

written by written by Journal of Bioremediation and Biodegradation