the paper demonstrates that short-term bioassays can reliably and expeditiously measure the genotoxic potential of hazardous industrial wastes and effluents. petrochemical wastes have been studied in detail, especially discharges from chemical manufacturing plants and textile and dye effluents. however, there is little information on effluents from pesticide manufacturers. the most extensive evaluations have been conducted on effluents from pulp and paper mills. these studies have shown which pulping plants generate the most genotoxic effluents, which process wastes are most hazardous, have isolated and identified the compounds responsible for the genotoxic activity, have described the environmental fate of these compounds, have evaluated the types of genetic damage likely to occur upon exposure to the effluents, and have identified several treatment methods that effectively reduce the genotoxicity of the effluents the coupling of bioassays for biological analysis with chemical evaluation provides the most powerful approach to assessing the overall health effects of complex industrial wastes and effluents