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. 2021 Nov 16;9(11):309.
doi: 10.3390/toxics9110309.

Characteristics and Risk Assessments of Mercury Pollution Levels at Domestic Garbage Collection Points Distributed within the Main Urban Areas of Changchun City

Zhaojun Wang  1 , Yangjie Zhang  1 , Lei Wang  1   2 , Xu Li  1 , Xuhang Zhou  1 , Xiangyun Li  1 , Mengping Yan  1 , Qiuming Lu  1 , Zhanhui Tang  1   2 , Gang Zhang  1   2   3   4 , Deli Wang  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

Characteristics and Risk Assessments of Mercury Pollution Levels at Domestic Garbage Collection Points Distributed within the Main Urban Areas of Changchun City

Zhaojun Wang et al. Toxics. .

Abstract

The mercury that is released from the centralized treatment of municipal solid waste is an important source of atmospheric mercury. We chose the main urban area of Changchun as a representative area. Environmental factors such as total mercury content, temperature, wind speed, and other factors were measured in samples from the trash cans of two types of collection points (trash cans and garbage stations), the topsoil under the selected trash cans, and the ambient air above the selected trash cans. The potential ecological risks of mercury pollution were evaluated. The results showed that the mercury content levels of all sample types in the refuse transfer station were higher than the garbage cans and there were no significant differences observed between soil surface mercury and garbage cans. The mercury content levels in the atmosphere and the surface soil at the garbage collection points were found to increase along the cascade relationship of the garbage collection. However, there were no correlations observed between the atmospheric mercury content levels and the surface soil mercury content levels with the attachments and the sum of the former two. There were no correlations observed between surface soil and the attachments, or among the attachments, surface soil, and the atmospheric mercury content levels. The mercury content levels in the attachments, surface soil, and atmosphere of the garbage collection points in the study area were negatively correlated with the loop lines. Meanwhile, the potential ecological risk indexes of the garbage cans and garbage stations were found to be high. The chronic non-carcinogenic risks of mercury to children and adults were determined to be very low. The risks of mercury to children were higher when compared with adults. The highest non-carcinogenic risks of mercury pollution were determined to be within the central area of Changchun.

Keywords: children; domestic waste; mercury; risk indexes; soil.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mercury transformations in landfill sites.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Layout of the sampling points.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Ring road map of Changchun City.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Sample points of each loop line.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Flow chart of the garbage collection and transfer processes.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Distribution of mercury content in the attachments of the refuse collection points.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Distribution of surface mercury content at refuse collection points.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Mercury content levels in the atmosphere of the refuse collection points.
Figure 9
Figure 9
(a) Mercury content levels of the various types of attachments at different collection points. (b) Surface soil mercury content levels. (c) Atmospheric mercury content levels. “*” means extreme outlier.
Figure 10
Figure 10
(a) Box chart of mercury content levels in the attachments of sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. (b) Mercury content levels of the surface soil sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. (c) Mercury content levels of the atmospheric sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. “*” means extreme outlier.
Figure 10
Figure 10
(a) Box chart of mercury content levels in the attachments of sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. (b) Mercury content levels of the surface soil sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. (c) Mercury content levels of the atmospheric sample points within the different loop lines of Changchun City. “*” means extreme outlier.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Potential ecological risk assessments: (a) distribution of the potential ecological risks of mercury pollution in the attachments; (b) surface soil; (c) atmosphere.
Figure 12
Figure 12
Distribution of the chronic non-carcinogenic indexes of mercury pollution for (a) adults and (b) children.
Figure 13
Figure 13
Distribution of the chronic non-carcinogenic indexes of mercury pollution in the surface soil for (a) adults and (b) children.
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