Bioremediation of textile dye effluent - A sustainable approach

Excessive, inefficient and indiscriminate use of water by textile industry is a major contributor to the-degradation of environment. Despite the adverse impact on environment, this sector generates largescale employment for the skilled as well as unskilled workforce. Much attention has been given on the remediation of contaminants due to the growing awareness and concern of the global community about the discharge of synthetic dyes into the ecosystem and their persistence. Several physicochemical decolorization methods have been reported over the past two decades, but few have been implemented by the textile manufacturing industry. This has been largely attributed to high costs, low efficiency and poor performance, over wide range of dyes. Bioremediation of synthetic dyes by various microbes is emerging as an effective, innovative and sustainable solution among other emerging pollution control technologies. In this article, we discuss ill effects of textile dye to environment, different methods used for dye decolorization, their progress and limitations.