The ongoing pollution of water resources with a variety of lubricating oils, the insufficiently developed
methods of purification of natural and waste water poses the problem of finding ways to restore the natural
qualities of the environment. The authors see a solution to this problem in the wide use of activity of individual
associations of oil-oxidizing microorganisms (OOM) in combination with the plant-derived sorbents
(buckwheat, oat, wheat and barley husk), which allows deep controlled oxidation of these contaminants down
to CO2 and H2O. It was found that the multi-species OOM communities take more active part in biodegradation
of mineral, semi-synthetic and synthetic oils, than those with the limited species composition. The growth,
development and activity in the oil biodegradation is determined by the nature of the contamination. The
population growth maxima lie between 5 and 14 days, and decrease to 2 to 6 hours under the influence of
sorbents
