Cleaning Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Contaminated Garden Soil by Phytoremediation.

A poplar planted system resulted in the complete removal of at least 19 of the 29 potential polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners detected in trace amounts (37.9 ng g-1 in total) in a commercial garden soil, while the unplanted soil only had 2 congeners completely removed after 96 days. In addition, the most recalcitrant congener, PCB 52, only decreased by 0.1% in the unplanted reactors while declining by 22.3% in the planted system. There was also greater removal of a PCB 77 spike in the planted system when compared to the unplanted system, 17.2% in the planted system versus 2.8% in the unplanted system. The results suggest that phytoremediation may be an effective tool in cleaning commercially available garden soils that are lightly contaminated with PCBs.