Introduction

One of the first questions that faced us when preparing this introductory chapter was ‘what do we mean by industry?’ In modern terms, one often refers to the industrial revolution that began in the latter half of the eighteenth century, which circumscribes the change from an agriculturally based economy to one dominated by manufacturing. However, industrial processes have a history far longer than this, and can be traced back to the Bronze Age and even before, particularly the extraction of minerals. We could also consider agriculture to be an industry as it is the extraction of raw resources albeit in a rather different form. Therefore when we refer to industry, we are actually considering a very wide range of processes and activities. Common to all these, however, is the fact that the production of goods from raw resources creates by-products that can pollute the environment and adversely affect ecosystems.

The industrial pollutants produced and their impacts are potentially as varied as the sources from which they derive, and there has been extensive research into specific effects of individual contaminants on specific organisms or communities. The problem with this approach is that the resulting view is one that can be rather blinkered. It is becoming increasingly clear that, rather than simply causing deterioration of ecosystems, contaminated sites may well be sources of biodiversity. Organisms living on such sites can show great genetic adaptation and may prove useful in the remediation of other contaminated sites.