Assessment of heavy metal contamination risk in soils of landfill of Bizerte (Tunisia) with a focus on application of pollution indicators

The aim of this work was to assess the pollution status of metals in soils of Bizerte landfill (northeastern of Tunisia) using pollution indicators. For this purpose, soils samples from five excavations were collected and characterized for metal content (Pb, Cu, Cr, Zn, Ni and Cd). The results of the geo-accumulation index (I (geo)) revealed that the most of the soils samples could be considered as unpolluted (Class 1) for Cr, Cu, Zn, Pb and Ni, while the values of Cd demonstrated to have moderate contamination (Class 2) based on I (geo) values. The results of the contamination factor (CF) also demonstrated low contamination levels for Ni, Pb, Zn, and Cu and moderate contamination levels for Cr and Cd. The values of pollution load index (PLI) were found to be low in all the studied samples and varied between 0.16 and 0.7, indicating that the studied stations in Bizerte landfill are in low pollution status considering the total of the studied metals.