Phytoremediation as a Sustainable Way for Land Rehabilitation of Heavy Metal Contamination

Abstract

Abstract Land contamination from heavy metals leads to a decrease in soil functions. Chemical contamination on agriculture land will cause negative impacts especially affecting human health. The factor that causes heavy metals to be included in the group of pollutants is the nature of heavy metals to be non-degradable. Several physicochemical techniques have been utilized to remove the pollutants from the contaminated environment. However, such techniques require high costs, intensive labor, irreversible change of the nature of the soil which cannot be recovered and other contribution towards pofllution. One of the methods of toxicity reduction or applicable heavy metal mobility through in situ or ex situ as well as being environment-friendly is phytoremediation. Phytoremediation technology includes phytostabilization, phytostimulation, phytotransformation, phytofiltration, and phytoextraction. This paper aims to study phytoremediation frorem the sustainable indicators, namely environmental, social and economic aspects. Phytoremediation is one of the sustainable ways to recover contaminated lands by offering the lowest cost compared to other methods. Healthy and fertile agriculture land is the key to food security so that by utilizing phytoremediation it may recover the polluted land with low fertility through sustainability aspects.