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Bioremediation Market

Bioremediation currently comprises only a small fraction of the very large hazardous-waste treatment market. However, it is one of the fastest growing sectors in the environment management. The commercialization of bioremediation industry in USA far exceeds that in other countries. US bioremediation market was about US $ 60 million in 1990, and was US $ 100 million in 1993, which reached US $ 175 to $300 million by 1995.

In 1993, in USA alone, there were at least 130 bioremediation depends on environmental laws\regulations and their enforcement, in the absence of which the industries would consider the expenditure on bioremediation as wasteful. In some countries the research and expense on bioremediation is subsidized by the government. For examples, in The Neatherlands, 6000 sites have been decontaminated since 1982. The government supported not only the research on soil bioremediation but also the development of systems using small fermenters to convert farm wastes into marketable fertilizers for export to developing countries. In several other countries  in Europe and also in Japan, incentives were provided by the government for research on  bioremediation.

There is also a good market for bioremediation of soil and ground water, which in many countries (particularly in USA) get contaminated by petroleum, due to leakage from underground storage tanks (USTs). Therefore, the extent of bioremediation of contamination due to USTs is large in USA. There are ~ 750, 000 UST facilities USA, which possess 2,000,000 tanks, that are subject to USPEA regulation. Over 50% of these tanks are used for storage of petroleum hydrocarbons and one-third (one sixth of the total USTs) of them are leaking. The environmental costs per site is $100,000 to $250,000, so that the cost of clean-up of all these sites will be US $40 billion.