ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the general advantages of phytoremediation over other existing technologies for cleaning up environmental toxic waste, particularly mercury. Man-made mercury contamination occurs throughout the globe and has increased steadily with the industrial revolution. Mercury’s use in agricultural pesticides directed against bacteria and fungi is also a major source of mercury pollution. The neurological diseases methylmercury produces are, thus far, untreatable. It is true that much of the ionic mercury at polluted sites is bound in high molecular weight compounds in the soil and sediment, and most mercury species move slowly and inefficiently into the food chain. Mercury pollution enters the environment in a number of ways. Because plants are multicellular, most of their natural mechanisms of metal tolerance involve sequestering metals on root surfaces, in vascular tissues, and in vacuoles. In contrast, bacterial electron transport systems are more exposed to environmental toxins because they are protected only by their cell walls.
