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Lindane is a cyclic, saturated and highly chlorinated pesticide with a broad spectrum, which has been used worldwide for many decades to control a variety of pests, and also in human health and veterinary. Afterward, it has been demonstrated that lindane and its isomers may cause serious damage to health in the short and long term. Besides, lindane is known to be persistent in the environment and tends to bioaccumulate along the food chain. Thus, lindane residues remain in the environment for a long time and have been recently found in water, soil, sediments, plants, and animals all over the world, and even in human fluids and tissues. In this context, nowadays, scientists, working all over the world, are involved in developing lindane remediation technologies including physical, chemical, and biological techniques. This article provides updated information on the biologic degradation of lindane using different microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, and algae, under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions.

The growth population and anthropogenic activity are constantly threatening the environment caused by the accumulation of different kinds of pollutants in the biosphere, especially in soils and sediments. Co-contaminated of environment with toxic organic and inorganic substance is often actually. For the remediation of soils contaminated with mainly petroleum, pesticide and heavy metals, several physical or chemical techniques have been developed inadequately. Inside the technologies “eco-friendly remediation,” the bioremediation have emerged as an option using natural biological activity. Bioremediation are methods where microorganisms degrade one or various pollutants to nontoxic compounds, so working individually or coordinately inside a microbial consortium. A microbial consortium is the natural association of two or more microbial populations of different species, which act together in a complex system. The success of a bioremediation process with pure cultures is very low and restricted. Therefore, use of a microbial consortium appears to be more feasible and reliable.

More than one-third of contaminated areas are found to have more than one type of pollutant. Co-contaminated environments with metals and organic compounds are difficult to remediate because of the mixed nature of the pollulants. Actinobacteria is an important group of microorganisms found in soils, with high metabolic versatility and abilities to bioremediation. Actinobacteria are currently studied for bioremediation of soils contaminated by pesticides and heavy metals. In this chapter we review the potential of actinobacteria isolated from contaminated environments for simultaneous soil bioremediation of Cr(VI) and the organochlorine pesticide lindane. Four actinobacteria, tolerant to Cr(VI) and lindane mixture were used: Streptomyces spp. A5, M7, MC1 and Amycolatopsis tucumanensis DSM 45259. Sterilized soil samples were inoculated with actinobacteria strains, either individually or as a consortium (formed by all selected actinobacteria) then contaminated with Cr(VI) and lindane, and incubated at 30 °C for 14 days. All actinobacteria were able to grow and remove both contaminants, the consortium formed by Streptomyces spp. A5, M7, MC1 and A. tucumanensis showed the highest Cr(VI) removal, while Streptomyces sp. M7 produced the maximum lindane removal. In non-sterile soil samples, Streptomyces sp. M7 and the consortium removed more than 40 % of the lindane, while Streptomyces sp. M7 demonstrated the greatest Cr(VI) removal. According to these results, it could be concluded that the use of Streptomyces sp. M7 is the strategy more appropriate for the bioremediation of soils contaminated with Cr(VI) and lindane.