Monitoring the efficacy of bioremediation.

The general acceptance of bioremediation technology as an environmentally sound and economic treatment for hazardous waste requires the demonstration of its efficacy, reliability and predictability, as well as its advantages over conventional treatments. An effective monitoring design includes protocols for treatment-specific, representative sampling, control and monitoring: these should take into account abiotic and biotic pollutant fate processes in all relevant process compartments. A number of well-established and novel chemical and molecular biological monitoring techniques and parameters are available. Logical and balanced combinations of both chemical and biological monitoring parameters should be used to demonstrate complete degradation and detoxification of a hazardous waste as well as the biological nature of the process. At each process-scale level, a set of general criteria should be used for systematic evaluation of the overall efficacy of bioremediation.