Factors important for quality assurance in trace analysis of solid wastes and air particulates

摘要

Large amounts of solid wastes are disposed of in Landfill sites in Canada, the United States of America and elsewhere. Some of these are incinerated to reduce their volume and the incineator ashes produced are also disposed of in landfills or algoons. Further, the incineration process produces air particulate emissions through the stacks. All these are environmental pollutants containing toxic inorganic elements. All aspects of these solid wastes have been studied, from concentrations of these elements in various types of wastes, through their leaching properties for environmental elemental toxins, to their health effects. The solid wastes produced by communities, industries, municipalities and hospitals are not uniform or reproducible in terms of input material. Therefore, in order to study them and their impact on the environment, protocols, procedures, quality control and quality assurance methods have to be devised and strictly followed so that the data collected over a period of time and over severla cities and countries can be meaningfully compared and understood. The paper deals with such protocls developed for sampling from solid waste dump sites and incinerator,s methods of analysis and nalaytical quality control using international comparator tandards, methods to isolate relevant particle size fractions and leaching protocols, methods of analysing tissue samples containing the toxins, and related issues.