Waste ashes for use in agricultural production: II. Contents of minor and trace metals.

The present study was carried out to examine the contents of 18 minor and trace metals in five typical municipal waste ashes in Japan. In the waste ashes, Li, Ga, Rb, Y, Zr had relatively higher concentrations, approximately 5-300 mg kg(-1), the remaining metal concentrations were generally approximately 0.05-20 mg kg(-1). A comparison of the metal concentrations in the waste ashes and in Japanese agricultural soils indicated that the ratios for Ga, Mo, Ag, Sb, W, Bi between sewage sludge ash (SSA) and the soils were approximately 10-100 and for the remaining metals approximately 0.2-2; the ratios between food scrap ash (FSA), animal waste ash (AWA), horticulture waste ash (HWA) and incinerator bottom ash (IBA) and the soils were approximately 0.2-5. Furthermore, an overall evaluation on the waste ashes was also carried out using factor analysis with the addition of the other 21 elements examined in a companion paper. In the waste ashes, the major nutrient elements and heavy metals were mainly described by four factors: factors 1 and 2 explained the main information of the minor and trace metals while factors 3 and 4 explained that of the major nutrient elements. Factor 2 in the score plots could be used to evaluate the potential risk of the waste ashes to agricultural soils. Of the five types of waste ashes, SSA and IBA were abundant with minor and trace metals; AWA was relatively abundant with major nutrient elements especially for K; FSA was relatively abundant with major nutrient elements except for K, while HWA was not abundant with either of them.