Occurrence of trace elements and their impact on human health around waste dumping sites

This study investigated the pollution level and assessed potential human health risk of trace elements in soil from Apo Mechanic Village, Gudu Market, and Goza Municipal dumpsite in Abuja, Nigeria where primitive recycling and recovery of valuable materials, open burning, dismantling, and dumping of wastes are being carried out. A total of 56 soil samples were collected from the three study sites and samples from their corresponding control sites, and analyzed for Zn, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Cr. The result showed that the element concentrations at the three study sites were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than their respective control sites, indicating the influence of waste recycling, dismantling, burning, and dumping activities at the sites. The average pollution load index (PLI) at the sites ranged from 5.80 to 37.09 indicating that the sites are highly polluted, with Cd and Pb being the highest contributors. Human health risk assessment revealed that there is a potential non-carcinogenic risk of Pb in adults and children through ingestion across the three study sites, and Pb in adults via dermal contact across the sites. There is also a non-carcinogenic risk of Cd and Ni through ingestion in children at the Apo site. Extremely high carcinogenic risk of Cr was found for both adults and children at all the three study sites, and carcinogenic risk of Cd in children at Apo and Goza sites and Pb in children at Goza site. This calls for an urgent need to enforce environmental regulations and prevention and monitoring of the crude and primitive waste dumping, dismantling, and burning activities at these sites as the investigated elements, particularly Pb, Cd, and Cr posed non-cancer and cancer health risks to workers and nearby residents.