The potential application of polymers in the biomedical area is huge, especially as antimicrobial agent. We studied the recovery of metal ions (silver and copper) with a known antibacterial activity. Using the liquid-phase polymer-based retention, LPR, technique it was generated the polymer-metal complexes from these metal ions. Their antibacterial activity was studied for gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The results indicated that the anionic polymers easily yield polymer-metal complexes with increased antibacterial activity with respect to their polymers. Cationic polymers demonstrated efficient antibacterial activity, and the polymer metal-complexes, PMC, showed similar antibacterial results. Neither system presented a genotoxic effect