Heavy metals in tropical city street dust and roadside soils: A case of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

A preliminary study on heavy metals pollution in the vicinity of Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia was carried out by analyses of soils and streetdust. The distribution of the metals in the “easily or freely leachable and exchangeable”;, “oxidisable organics”;, “acid reducible”; and “resistant”; fractions were determined by a sequential extraction technique. The result reveals a markedly high metals pollution in the city with > 98% of Pb level contributed from the surrounding environment. Pb, Zn and Mn were found to be highly soluble in the the non‐resistant fraction.