3. Results and discussion
3.1. Levels of contaminants
Landfill leachate samples (n = 11) from five USA MSW landfills
were analyzed for ten trace organic pollutants. The concentration
data, summary statistics and results of the QA/QC samples are presented
in Table 4. Due to the complex nature of the samples analyzed,
five quality control samples were included; one blank,
three MSs and one LCS using ultra-pure water each spiked with
native compounds to a level of 300 ng L1. The contaminants were
present at a wide range of concentrations (low ng L1 to mg L1)
and this required that a number of dilutions be performed on
specific samples/analytes to determine the concentrations. The
results of the QA/QC samples indicate that there is a high level of
accuracy and precision in the results. No false positive results were
recorded in the blanks, the recovery rate of the LCS ranged between