An Innovative Approach to Assess the Ecotoxicological Risks of Soil Exposed to Solid Waste

Abstract

The adoption of sustainable waste management strategies is a challenge faced by most European countries, mainly due to the need to generate less waste and replace landfills with new methods of waste treatment, associated with increases in the separate collection of waste and recycling rates. This paper highlights the significance of environmental legislation regarding waste removal to protect ecosystems. The aim was to predict ecological responses to heavy metals in soil exposed to hazardous waste and to identify environmental hazards in landfills, small illegal waste dumps, and litter, in addition to identifying if heavy metal accumulation in the investigated soil samples showed a single or cumulative risk. This is an innovative method to predict the ecological risk generated by hazardous waste landfills. The assessment of ecological risks was based on the evaluation of a heavy metal soil contamination factor, pollution index of soil loadings, a geo-accumulation index for heavy metals, and potential ecological risk. The current study is also the first to attempt to identify the dimension of risk based on the type of waste deposit (landfill, small illegal waste dump, and litter) and to identify potential patterns. The geological index corresponding to cadmium Igeo(Cd) showed heavy contamination in the soil samples from the landfill and moderate contamination for those from the illegal waste dumps. These findings indicate that soil contamination is influenced by contamination time, anthropogenic processes, and a history of industrial activity, and not only by waste composition and storage. The present study shows that cadmium might be considered a latent fingerprint for waste disposal, which is correlated to the industrialization level and rehabilitation procedures.

Risk Assessment of Heavy Metal in Farmlands and Crops Near Pb–Zn Mine Tailing Ponds in Niujiaotang, China

“…This method is based on the total concentrations of heavy metals, and it can visually reflect the correlation between measured and background concentrations of heavy metals to evaluate their risk in the soil. According to their evaluation criteria, index evaluation methods can be divided into single pollution [ 16 ], Nemeiro [ 17 ], geological accumulation [ 18 ], and potential ecological risk index methods [ 19 ]. Ecological risk evaluation, which is based on the total amount of soil heavy metals, often does not effectively represent the chemical activity and bioavailability of heavy metals.…”