To efficiently remove heavy metals from contaminated soils around an abandoned mine, new magnetically modified alginic acid and XYZ samples were prepared. The Kahak mine, which is located in Kwang-Myung City in Korea, was chosen to provide a model contaminated soil. Among the heavy metals in this contaminated soil, the concentration of Zn2+ was the highest (ca. 500 mg/L); the concentrations of Pb2+, Cu2+, and Cd2+ were 300, 45, and 5 mg/L, respectively. In the case of alginic acid containing carboxyl groups only, the removal efficiencies of Pb2+ and Cu2+ were high (95 and 85 %, respectively), but those of Cd2+ and Zn2+ were low (ca. 40 %). Meanwhile, most of these heavy metals could be completely removed when the XYZ adsorbent, including amine and xanthate functional groups, was used. The sorption mechanism involves chelating the heavy metals to S and N atoms of a variety of functional groups. Heavy metals could be removed within 30 sec with no re-elution. Therefore, this process seems to be a very safe method for removing heavy metals from the contaminated soils of the Kahak mine.