The cultivation of fungi is associated with the large production of spent mushroom compost (SCM), that have great ability to degrade lignin-like pollutants. The use of SMC to clean up contaminated soil is a promising alternative to other more expensive methods. A 12-week experiment with spent mushroom composts from Agaricus bisporus (champignon) and Lentinula edodes (shiitake) was carried out to compare their ability to degrade PAHs. The degradation of PAHs by Agaricus bisporus was in the following order: anthracene, pyrene, fluoranthene, and phenanthrene (87, 85, 83 and 79% of the control). The strongest degradation by Lentinula edodes was confirmed for anthracene (86% of the control), then for phenanthrene, fluoranthene and pyrene (78, 70 and 63% of the control, respectively). After a brief reduction of naphthalene content, a rapid increase was noted for both Lentinula edodes and Agaricus bisporus (170 and 149% of the control, respectively, at the end of the experiment).

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