The effect of environmental pollution on the heavy metal content of raw milk

Abstract

This investigation was conducted to determine the contents of some heavy metals in milk samples collected from three different regions, an industrial region, a rural and heavy traffic intensity region around Bursa, a province of Turkey. A total of 75 raw milk samples were collected from these different regions, and the contents of lead, arsenic, copper, zinc, mercury and iron were determined. The average amounts in the samples from these three regions were for Pb 0.032, 0.049, 0.018 mg/kg; for As 0.05, 0.009, 0.0002 mg/kg; for Zu 4.49, 5.01, 3.77 mg/kg; for Cu 0.58, 0.96, 0.39 mg/kg; for Fe 1.78, 4.27, 1.01 mg/kg, while no mercury was detected in the samples. The highest heavy metal content was found in the milk samples collected from industrial region followed by traffic intensive region and rural region.