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Biotechnology and Pollution Control- Environmental biotechnology is concerned, both with the implications and applications of biotechnology in the wider context of environment. Due to rapid industrialization, urbanization and other developments, there is a constant threat to the clean environment and to the depleting natural resources.

In this connection, a reference may he made to the following two conferences:

(i) The First Conference on the Human Environment was held in 1972 at Stockholm, where Late Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India called poverty to be the biggest pollutant.

(ii) After 20 years, in June 1992, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held in Brazil, where heads of the states from 166 countries participated' to examine the issues involved and the solutions possible.

While on the one hand, there is an increasing problem of control of environmental pollution, there is also a problem of conservation of nature and natural resources. Both these problems are receiving constant attention of environmentalists.

Among implications, there is also att alarm due to release of genetically engineered organisms in the atmosphere and also due to the release of effluents from biotechnological companies, so that the environmentalists are having a debate on the effects of developments in biotechnology on the environment.

There is also a debate on the safety of the use of the products of biotechnology, an area described as biosafety. Among applications, on the other hand, efforts are also being made to use biotechnology to protect the environment from pollution and to conserve natural resources.

At a time, when the gap between those who have plenty and those who do not have even the minimum is widening, both ends of this spectrum i.e. plenty and poverty are contributing to environmental degradation. It is, therefore, necessary that the developing and developed countries jointly find a path of development which "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their need" (World Commission on Environment and Development).

Efforts are being made to achieve this objective through a variety of approaches, and biotechnology is certainly one of them. In this and the next three chapters, environmental implications and applications of biotechnology for environment will be discussed.

In recent years, we have witnessed a debate on the environmental. implications of biotechnology. In this debate, risks involved in the use of biotechnological approaches have often been emphasized (or even overemphasized) and the adequate guidelines for safety have been suggested and enforced by law.

However, there have also been rapid developments in the applications of biotechnology, which may help in controlling environment pollution, thus giving a cleaner and sustainable environment in future. According to one estimate in USA, the US market for environmental clean up applications was expected to grow at an average rate of 17%, while that for microbes and enzymes was expected to grow by only 7% every year.

Besides others, these applications for environment clean up include biotreatment methods for effluents and toxic wastes. However, these treatments, it is feared, could be problematic, where they involve deliberate or accidental release of genetically modified microbes to the environment. These applications of biotechnology in environment management (pollution control) and the risks.
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