In recent years, the cleanup of oil-contaminated sites by bioremediation has attracted much attention. In order to perform an effective bioremediation, suitable oil-degrading microorganisms should be induced in the remediation site with the accompanying nutrients. In this study, we investigated the bioremediation effects of 4 interventions-compost derived from food waste (food-waste compost), chemical nutrients, mushroom, and biofertilizer-versus no intervention (control) in a bioremediation field trial of oil-contaminated soil. Whereas the concentration of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in the control section remained largely unchanged throughout the experiment, large reductions in TPH concentrations were seen with all interventions. In particular, compost greatly decreased TPH concentrations, from 8,300 ppm to 2,300 ppm after 74 days. Furthermore, we obtained an understanding of the behavior of oil-degrading bacteria by quantifying the alkane monooxygenase genes (
alkB and
alkM), the catechol 1,2-dioxygenase gene (C12O gene), and the catechol 2,3-dioxygenase gene (C23O gene). We observed a tendency for oil-degrading bacteria to increase proportionally in the sections in which THP degradation was observed. In particular, compost was more effective than the other interventions in inducing the growth of bacteria possessing the
alkM and C23O gene, resulting in a significant reduction in the concentration of alkanes and aromatics. Thus, we demonstrated that the application of food-waste compost to bioremediation was very effective. This technique can simultaneously solve the 2 environmental problems of petroleum pollution and the increase in food waste.
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