Advanced Bioremediation Strategies for Mitigation of Chromium and Organics Pollution in Tannery

Recent past has witnessed to increase in environmental pollution because of rapid urbanization and industrialization. Various organic and inorganic toxicants are present in tannery effluents such as metals and other xenobiotic compounds which cause imbalance to the ecosystem having carcinogenic effects threaten plants, human, and animals’ health. Chromium is one of the major pollutants discharged from tanneries, is highly toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic in nature. There are several remedial measures for the removal of such toxicants. Physicochemical approaches remove the pollutants but they are not cost-effective and eco-friendly. Microorganisms based treatment of toxic chemicals either in liquid or solid system is one of the most economic, effective, environment friendly, robust, and sustainable remediation strategy. Several microbes of different physicochemical orientation and plants may selectively be employed for such remedial measure of any type of toxic chemicals of industrial effluent. This chapter discusses the recent advances and challenges in bioremediation methods of tannery wastewater.