Phytoremediation and rehabilitation of municipal solid waste landfills and dumpsites: A brief review

Environmental problems posed by municipal solid waste (MSW) are well documented. Scientifically designed landfills and/or open dumpsites are used to dispose MSW in many developed and developing countries. Non-availability of land and need to reuse the dumpsite space, especially in urban areas, call for rehabilitation of these facilities. A variety of options have been tried to achieve the goals of rehabilitation. In the last couple of decades, phytoremediation, collectively referring to all plant-based technologies using green plants to remediate and rehabilitate municipal solid waste landfills and dumpsites, has emerged as a potential candidate. Research and development activities relating to different aspects of phytoremediation are keeping the interest of scientists and engineers alive and enriching the literature. Being a subject of multi-disciplinary interest, findings of phytoremediation research has resulted in generation of enormous data and their publication in a variety of journals and books. Collating data from such diverse sources would help understand the dynamics and dimensions of landfill and dumpsite rehabilitation. This review is an attempt in this direction. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.