A rapid industrialization, increasing of agricultural activity, mining and large amounts of waste are causing higher soil contamination with non-degradable pollutants, such as heavy metals. As a result, large areas are contaminated with metals, which negatively affects the possibility of using such lands in agriculture. Therefore, these sites need to be effectively decontaminated. Chemical and physico – chemical processes are used for decontamination, and recently also biological processes, such as phytoremediation can be used. Phytoremediation is a bioremediation process that uses plants to accumulate, stabilize or degrade pollutants to restore the environment. Phytoremediation processes are promising, cost-effective and eco-friendly with some limitations – as e.g. it is very slow process and metallic stress may occur in plants. Plant abilities to uptake, translocate and limit the toxicity of heavy metals may be significantly enhanced via genetic engineering. To maximize progress in the phytoremediation processes, a combination of chemical, biological and genetic engineering tools should be used.
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