Assessing soil pollution from a municipal waste dump in Islamabad, Pakistan: a study by INAA and AAS

INAA and AAS techniques have been employed to determine 40 elements in soil of a municipal waste dump in sector H-11, Islamabad. Background soil was also analyzed to study the extent of contamination of the dump site soil. Most of the major elements in these soils represented the geochemical composition of the soil in this area. The enrichment factors for quantified elements identified high Sb and Mg contents that could be attributed to the presence of PET and food materials in the waste. Geo-accumulation Index (I _geo), Pollution Index (PI) and the Integrated Pollution Index (IPI) have also been calculated for all elements. The values for these indices show that municipal waste has distorted the soil ambiance and the soil of waste dump site is slightly to moderately polluted as compared to the background soil. The dump soil was found to be moderately polluted by the elements Ba, Br, Ga, Rb, Zn, Ni and Pb. Significantly high Cu, Mg and Sb contamination was observed for the waste soil that is likely to pose an environmental issue if current waste disposal procedures are continuously employed.