Assessment of Pollutants in Wet and Dry Depositions in a Suburban Area around a Waste-to-Energy Plant (WEP) in Northern Italy

Abstract

Atmospheric concentrations of many trace elements are significantly affected by human activities, and their quantifica-tion in atmospheric deposition can be useful to ascribe to different sources of pollution. An important source of pollu-tion, which creates concern in the inhabitants of neighboring areas, are waste-to-energy-plants, that nonetheless are necessary in the actual management of municipal solid waste. For this reason the waste-to-energy (WEP) plant of Bo-logna (Italy) was monitored from 2006 to 2008, collecting rainfall water in 6 sites around it. Moreover, dry deposition of pollutants was determined after leaching from leaves, with four samples collected during 2007. Trace elements were analyzed using spectrometry, deposition and fluxes were calculated. Results show that there is a large variability of concentrations of trace elements both in time and space. Moreover, the pollution in the area is quite diffused, with no clear determination of the role of the WEP. As a general remark, elements and trace elements found both in rainfall wa-ter and in leaching water from leaves showed a diffused pollution in all the monitored sites, probably due to the WEP but also to industrial/commercial area, large constructions and high traffic roads. In any case the values found in the area are comparable to values detected in similar area all over the world