Environmental biotechnology has an exciting future. Just the thought of having
microorganisms work for you – simply by feeding them with natural substrates
and having hazards turned into minerals and nature’s own basic constituents – is
really intriguing. Of course, we all know that it is not that simple, but nevertheless
it is both the fundamental premise, and the ultimate goal, which we must bear
in mind in all developments in the field.
Environmental biotechnology is not an easy subject to cover, but therefore so
much the more important that it should be. For years, the environmental technologies had a little too much tail wind because of the overwhelming sympathy for green solutions. This often led to misuse and discredit of the technologies
among some end users. In those years, too many studies underestimated the
complexity of the task. The inevitable outcome was poor documentation, not
giving enough credit to the processes involved and the degree of process control
required. The reputations of these technologies were also hampered by the
fact that some of those who were in favour of them were too ambitious as to
when these technologies should be applied, and gave too little emphasis to other
competing approaches which might have been more useful.