Phytoextraction of mine wastes - Options and impossibilities

As soon as a soil is highly contaminated with more than one metal (polymetallic soils), the phytoextraction procedure will last more than a centennium, thus this period is too long for an economically feasible technology. At such sites, phytostabilization by revegetation is the most relevant technology in order to ensure a stabilization of the metals in the soil, and to hamper the contamination of groundwater and/or the surrounding landscape by wind and/or water erosion of the mine waste.