E. **Phytoremediation**

The direct use of green plants and their associated microorganisms to stabilize or reduce contamination in soils, sludges, sediments, surface water, or ground water is defined as Phytoremediation. This technique depends on the use of plant interactions (physical, biochemical, biological, chemical and microbiological) to contaminated sites to mitigate the toxic effects of pollutants. It is an alternative technology that can be used along with or in place of mechanical conventional clean-up technologies that often require high capital inputs and are energy intensive. Area with low concentrations of contaminants over large cleanup areas and at shallow depths presents especially favorable conditions for phytoremediation. Depending on pollutant type (elemental or organic), there are several mechanisms (accumulation or extraction, degradation, filtration, stabilization and volatilization) involved in phytoremediation [21]. Elemental pollutants (toxic heavy metals and radionuclides) are mostly removed by extraction, transformation and sequestration.

