10
Integrated Environmental
Biotechnology
The essence of environmental biotechnology as an applied science, as we have
set out to demonstrate in the preceding chapters of this book, is the harnessing of
pre-existing organisms and natural cycles to bring about a desired goal. Some-
times this is achieved by relatively unsophisticated means. At others it requires
rather more in the way of engineering, adaptation or modification, in one form or
another, to fit nature’s original to the intended purpose. Thus, though the exact
form of any given iteration may differ, the underlying paradigm remains the same.
Applying what is effectively a naturalistic model leads to some inevitable con-
clusions with far-reaching implications for the future of this particular discipline.
The fundamental necessity of mutual interactions in nature is readily accepted
and understood. Hence, the natural cycles obligatorily dovetail together at both
the gross and the microscopic levels, with interplay existing between the organism
and its environment as well as between the various central metabolic pathways.
Since such integration exists already between bioprocesses, and these are the
very stuff upon which environmental biotechnology is based, the potential for
integrated applications is clear.
At its simplest, this involves the sequential use of individual technologies to
provide a solution in a linked chain of successive steps, often termed a ‘treat-
ment train’. The other extreme is the wider amalgamation of larger fundamental
problems and their resolutions into a single cohesive whole. This book began
by looking at the key intervention areas for environmental biotechnology and
defined the three legs of that particular tripod as pollution, waste and manufac-
turing. This theme has been further developed, to examine how old pollution
can be cleaned up and how the rational treatment of solid wastes and effluent
can contribute to the reduction of new pollution. So-called ‘clean’ technologies
represent the logical end-point of this discussion, when the production processes
themselves assist in the reduction of waste and the minimisation of pollution, in
the ultimate integrated system.
All industrialised countries face the same three problems in attempting to marry
economic growth with environmental responsibility, namely the need to marshal
material resources, deal rationally with their waste and the requirement for adequate
and affordable energy. This dichotomy of desire between compromising neither