Heavy metals content in a polluted area from Romania

Industrial pollution has been and continues to be a major factor causing the degradation of the environment. Pollution affects the health of the population as well.  Copsa Mica  is the town with one of the highest degree of pollution in Romania.  The researched area Copsa Micã is known on national and international level for the ecological lack of balance induced by the non-ferrous metallurgy.
The most intensive polluting agents  produced by S. C. Sometra S. A. Copsa Micã  are the sulphur dioxides emissions, lead, the solid particles in suspension, cadmium and other similar substances, which are present in the atmosphere, in the subsurface and surface water, in the soil and on the vegetation.
The aim of this study was to determine the concentrations of lead, cadmium and zinc in environmental factors (soil, water, food) from 5 sites situated at different distances from the SOMETRA, which were compared with 2 reference sites from a non-polluted area.
The amount of Pb, Cd and Zn from the samples have been determined using an atomic absorption technique with furnace and flame atomization, using a Shimadzu AA 6300 AAS instrument.
After analyzing the results we found out that the content of heavy metals in Copsa Mica area is significantly higher compared with the analyzed samples from other areas where  the content of heavy metals is in the accepted limits.
In the perspective of the forthcoming years, the efforts meant to improve the activities of the environment protection will constitute a top priority concern for all the factors being involved in this field.