ABSTRACT
Society is learning to adapt to pollution by heavy metals in the environment, and is now attempting to remediate, control, and minimize such pollution wherever possible. To do this, there is a need for methods of assessing the amount of heavy metal pollution in the natural and industrial environments. Although it is relatively straightforward to use the techniques of analytical chemistry to detect total amounts of heavy metal in a given location, this rarely tells you how much of this metal is a biological hazard. To achieve this, biological methods may offer distinct advantages over chemical methods.
