This program conducted survey and inspection of 74 businesses based on their waste characteristics, including one large-scale garbage incinerator, 10 industrial waste incinerators, 5 incinerators of hazardous or medical wastes, 5 paper mills, 22 iron and steel smelters, 10 secondary copper smelters, 10 secondary aluminum smelters, 8 secondary zinc smelters, and 3 secondary lead smelters. Collected industrial wastes include floating dusts, bottom residues, collected dusts, and sludge. The samples were tested for contents of dioxin, and heavy metal in the solution of TCLP. From 87 waste samples for dioxin analysis, the dioxin concentration distribution is 0.0002~90.1 ng-TEQ/g, with 29 above the criteria of 1.0 ng-TEQ/g for hazardous industrial wastes. Among these, the sources of hazardous industrial wastes are mainly from the following: collected dusts from secondary copper smelters (10 above criteria), incinerators for industrial wastes and medical wastes (12 of 22 samples above criteria), collected dusts from steel smelters (5 of 22 above criteria), secondary aluminum smelters (1 of 10 above criteria), and secondary zinc smelters (1 of 8 above criteria). Among 87 waste samples for heavy metal analysis from TCLP solution, there are 46 samples exceeding rated criteria for hazardous industrial wastes, Among these, 10 samples of collected dusts from secondary smelters all failed (mainly from excess contents of cadmium, copper and lead); 9 out of 21 samples from industrial and medical wastes failed (mainly from excess contents of cadmium, copper and lead); 20 out of 21 samples from steel smelters failed (mainly from excess contents of lead, cadmium, chromium and Cr6+); 2 out of 10 samples from secondary aluminum smelters failed (mainly from excess contents of cadmium and selenium); 2 out of 8 samples from secondary zinc smelters failed (mainly from excess contents of lead and cadmium); and all 3 samples from secondary lead smelters failed (mainly from excess contents of lead and cadmium). The inspection result of this study targeting the collected dusts from secondary copper smelters shows the dissolved heavy metal cadmium and dioxin concentration all exceed legal limits, indicating an urgent need to strengthen control of hazardous wastes from this industry. The study discovers that because of erroneous recognition by the secondary copper smelters, the codes for filing waste items have been mainly on C-0102(total lead), C-0110(total copper), and D-1099(non-hazardous collected dust or its mixtures). The urgent measures are to enhance the inspection and guidance to this industry to amend the waste report item to use A-7501 code (collected dust or sludge from emission control of secondary smelting of lead, nickel, mercury, and copper), and to mandate the smelters adopt permissible waste disposal methods according to Article 20 of “Criteria for waste store, disposal and facilities of industrial wastes” regulation.

dioxins, hazardous wastes, heavy metals