A study of environmental contamination from hazardous waste and the community management

Abstract

The purpose of this cross-sectional survey was to measure the levels of chemicals contaminated from hazardous waste and to describe the waste management activities in communities. The target sites were 12 communities in 12 Provinces where wastes were produced more than 50 tons per day. The methods of the study consisted of 2 steps. The first one was to measure chemical contamination. 249 samples of soil from just below the surface of the soil and 235 samples of water from the surface of the soil were taken from anarea of 5 kilometres radius to search for toxic chemicals and heavy metals. There were 2 kinds of methods of analysis. One was the method of analysing the soil: Test Method of Evaluating Solid Waste, Physical/ Chemical Methods (SW-846) of USEPA. The other was the method of analysing the water: inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) and graphic furnace atomic absorption spectrometer (GFAAS). The results were obtained by descriptive analysis such as number, percentage and median, data presented by having group conversation. The second step was to perform to obtain information from 35 people including local administration group, sorting waste labors, used good collectors and village representatives. The results of this study pointed out the level of arsenic, cadmium and zinc from soil level B in thesurrounding areas of landfills in Chiangmai province exceeded the recommended limit with median 34.0, 1.1 and 90.0 mg/kg, respectively. The level of cobalt in the surrounding areas of landfills in Lampang, Udontani, Kalasin, Nakhonsawan, Kanchanaburi, Prachuabkirikan and Phuket province were found to exceed the recommended limit with median 30.0, 26.0, 28.0, 28.0, 24.0, 50.0 and 22.0 mg/kg respectively. Also the levels of zinc were higher than the recommended limit in Udon thani ,Nakhon sawan, Chachoengsao, Uratthani province with median 1.17, 1.21, 2.81, and 1.33 mg/l, respectively. The results of the communities management showed that 12 provinces had no good management model on sorting out hazardous wastedisposal. 41.7% of respondents had no knowledge of how to get rid of sorted hazardous waste. 58.3% of respondents revealed that they had never separated hazardous waste before dumping or mashing or burying.The lack of staff and knowledge was also a limitation of this waste management system. According to theresult of this study showed that all involved agencies should have some support. Moreover, special managementis required for local authority agencies in order to set up an effectively hazardous management system.This will be useful in decreasing contamination of surface water and soil by hazardous chemical waste.