albert 135, I understand 'bioremediation' to include all forms of life in the effort to clean up pollution which has already occured. Phytoremediation is specific to the use of plants to reduce the confirmed pollution of bodies of land and water.
But this is all just my understanding, you understand?

ronalawn82 has it down correctly, that is exactly the distinction bewteen the two terms. 'Bioremediation' typically refers to the use of microbes, bacterium, fungi, etc. to clean up contaminated soil and/or toxic wastes. 'Phytoremediation' (from the Greek prefix phyto-, meaning plant, and the Latin root remidium: to correct or remove evil) is the use of plant material to filter contaminates from soils or water. Plant material is often used to purify waste water or for sewage treatment purposes.

And yes, both terms are needed as they describe quite different processes.

I would like to invite everyone interested in the topics of microbial bioremediation and phytoremediation, the cleaning of contaminants using natural methods, to a tweetchat this coming Friday. I will be co-hosting an event on #groundchat (via twitter) this Friday at 1pm Central Time.

Hope to see you there... Looking forward to hearing your opinions on the subject!