Toxicological implications of industrial effluents on plants: a review focusing on phytoremediation techniques

Industrialisation plays a very important role in remodelling of society. Today, we are in the society where almost all people depend on industries directly or indirectly. However, in spite of having so many benefits, it can make a great impact on our natural resources. Since ages, industrial growth has started to affect environment with severe problems. It causes tremendous pressure on the entire biological network and components of the natural system such as water, air, soil, and biodiversity including the surrounding ecosystem. Continuous emissions of effluents that mostly contain heavy metals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, dyes, chemicals, alkalis, petroleum hydrocarbons, etc. influence the quality of water and are highly toxic for human beings as well as other living organism, especially aquatic animals and plants. On being exposed, plants tend to accumulate the effluents resulting in physiological, biochemical, and metabolic perturbations. This review mainly focuses on the toxicological impacts of different heavy metals present in industrial effluents on various plants. There is a dire need to explore various mechanisms adopted by different plants to alleviate the effluent stress. Literature survey unravels the tolerance strategies and cost-effective remediation techniques for effluent containing heavy metal remediation from the environment. Much attention has been paid to sophisticated technologies with high operational costs. Phytoremediation techniques are cost-effective and should be critically employed for the remediation of heavy metals comprising effluents attributed to its eco-friendly nature. This article also invokes an idea to understand the tolerance and adaptive strategies adopted by plants and ensure the novel varieties that could be helpful in heavy metal accumulation. However, a significant contemplation of this issue is of paramount importance to ensure the long-term viability of the present ecosystem.