Phytoremediation is defined as a plant-based approach in remediating the soil by extracting and removing the pollutants from the soil or by lowering the contaminants bioavailability in the soil due to their ability in absorbing ionic compounds through their root system even if the concentrations are low (EPA, 2012; Rajkumar et al., 2012; Yan et al., 2020). Plants are shown to be helpful in cleaning variety of contaminants including metals, pesticides, and oil but they work utmost best in low contaminant levels as opposed to high concentrations as it may limit the plants growth as well as take a longer time to clean up, and also helpful in preventing any natural interruption, such as wind and rain, to carry the excessive contaminants away from its original site to the surrounding areas (Shah & Daverey, 2020; EPA, 2012). Furthermore, there are certain plant species which could remove or break down these harmful chemicals stored in the soil when they use their roots to intake water and nutrients from said contaminated soil (EPA, 2012).

        The phytoremediation process begins as the plant’s root system extend into the soil before establishing a rhizosphere ecosystem which will accumulate and modulate the pollutants bioavailability thus reclaiming the polluted soil and stabilize the soil fertility (Ali et al., 2013; Jacob et al., 2018). This is then followed by the contaminants being absorbed into the plants and stored inside the roots, stems, and leaves where they will be converted into less harmful chemicals, and eventually the chemicals will convert into water vapour through leaves and stems which will be released into the air whilst the contaminants that accumulated in the root will be used by microbes that live in the soil such as bacteria (EPA, 2012). The total duration for phytoremediation process to completely clean up a contaminated site is around several years in which the time of completion is very much dependent on several factors such as the concentrations of pollutants, contaminated area size, and the plant growth season (Ekta & Modi, 2018; EPA, 2012).