Phytotechnology and Photosynthesis 169seems likely that the increasingly prioritised initiatives to find low-cost systems
to bring about effective remediation, effluent control and carbon sequestration
will begin to reverse this situation in the near future. However, it is unavoid-
ably true that the wider uptake of all plant-utilising bioengineering applications
will depend as much on local modalities as on the actual state of the biotech-
nologies themselves. In this respect, phytotechnology has much in its favour.
For one thing, it has the enormous benefit of virtually assured universal public
acceptance, which is rare for any biotechnology. Commercially, it is a rela-
tively low-intervention, highly ‘green’ and thoroughly noncontentious approach
to environmental management, which has a strong potentially positive contribu-
tion to corporate image, with a relatively low negative influence on the balance
sheet. The great advantage that almost all plant-based systems bring to biological
engineering is the tremendous energy saving represented by their solar-powered
nature. This, combined with their essentially integrated and intrinsically complex
array of metabolic mechanisms makes a variety of plant species extremely use-
ful in an environmental context, and typically without any additional need for
modification. Given their inherent flexibility, acceptability, efficiency and cost-
effectiveness, it is difficult to imagine that phytotechnological systems will not
be further developed and more widely adopted in the future.
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