Phytoremediation

Phytoremediation is the use of plants to extract, sequester, degrade, or stabilize environmental contaminants — heavy metals, radionuclides, pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons — from soil or water. Cannabis sativa (especially industrial hemp) is a documented hyperaccumulator of cadmium, lead, nickel, and chromium and was deployed experimentally at the Chernobyl exclusion zone in the 1990s for uptake of cesium-137 and strontium-90 (Vandenhove & Van Hees, 2005, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 81:131; Linger et al., 2002, Industrial Crops and Products 16:33). Its deep taproot, rapid biomass accumulation, and tolerance to poor soils favor phytoremediation applications. Note: this term is an environmental/botanical concept — it is not a chemistry or endocannabinoid-system term and appears in this section only because it was listed in the source brief; in the full CannabisGlossary.org taxonomy, it is more properly treated under Botany/Cultivation or Environmental Science. → See also: (Cultivation & Botany glossary entries). ---