Heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, tin and antimony are toxic metals and harmful to all living organism. Accumulation of such elements over time can cause serious illness or fatality. To ensure it's safe, we apply AOAC method to determine heavy metal residue in food.

Heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, tin and antimony are toxic metals and harmful to all leaving life because their accumulation over time can cause serious illness or fatality. European Union EN71-Part 3 (Migration of heavy metal) has strict guideline to prevent heavy metal such as lead migrate from toy to kids where lead is often use as shining agent in toy. The lead permissible limit in toy has been reduced to 50 ppm recently.

Similarly, emission of air pollutant such as heavy metal through incomplete combustion manufacturing process will threaten our environment because unlike other organic pollutants, heavy metals do not decay over time. USEPA and NIOSH sampling method often use to determine heavy metal residue in air.