In treatment wetlands for domestic wastewater disposal, a considerable decrease in phosphorus removal is generally observed after 3-4 years following the startup. Treatment wetlands performances have to be upgraded more and more often by directing durably discarded P according to requirements. The use of high P-capacity media was identified as a major issue over the last 10 years, and elevated P-sorption capacities of industrial by-products including steelslag, iron-slag, oil-shale-ash and coal ash were recently highlighted. Besides updating the knowledge, this mini-review is aimed at critically evaluating the feasibility of using industrial by-products inside or downstream of treatment wetlands in terms of P-sorption capacities, mechanisms and limits. Most of the valuable available literature (46 articles in peer reviewed journals) has been incorporated. Recent advances were mainly considered as half of the articles were published over the last three years. In selected papers, investigations were mainly conducted at lab-scale in batch (49%) or columns (38%) and to date, there have been few attempts to estimate the efficiency of field-scale experiments (13%). Among the P-removal mechanisms it was mostly postulated that industrial by-products both favor CaP precipitation followed by crystallization and sorption on active sites onto the surface of the media (e.g. ferrous oxides). Max P-sorption capacities (from 0.01 to 50 g P/kg material) are not solely relevant, but environmental aspects such as alkalinity release and clogging were investigated. The technical and economical feasibility of fieldscale filters is discussed. Despite the fact that there have been few works dealing on how to deal with industrial by-products after P-saturation, possibilities have been discussed including replacement/rejuvenation and valorisation as fertilizers.