Heavy metal pollution is one of the most important environmental problems today even threatening human life. A large number of industries produce and discharge wastes containing different heavy metals into the environment and do not comply with current EU directives. European project BIOMETAL DEMO (www.biometaldemo.eu) aims to demonstrate the feasibility of the application of novel biotechnologies for the treatment of metal polluted wastewaters through the development of three pilot plants to be implemented in metal polluting representative industries.The biotechnologies that have been evaluated in project BIOMETAL DEMO are: metal bioprecipitation by sulphate-reducing bacteria and immobilized phytase biocatalysis, and metal biosorption on agricultural industry by-products and biopolymers such as alginate & chitosan based materials.After the evaluation of these techniques, an optimized bioprocess or a synergy of two integrated bioprocesses will be selected to design and build two demonstration pilot plants for scaling-up the metal removal biotreatment.Finally, an economic, social and technical analysis of the benefits of such biotreatment of metal polluted industrial wastewater will be carried out for the corresponding and related industrial sectors.