Abstract

On 30 March of 1990 the Dutch Inspectorate for the Environment and the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection organised a workshop on the theme "Standardization of methods of analysis for hazardous waste". With the increasing attention for putting into practice environmental policy and the intensification of the enforcement of environmental legislation, a growing need was felt for uniform and standardized methods of analysis. During the workshop and its preparation 85 combinations of components and waste streams were inventoried by which methods of analysis are currently used, what quality they have, and which ones can be taken into consideration to be standardized, based on expected consensus. For twelve specific determinations (very) tentative draft proposals for (investigations for the development of) a standardised method were drawn up. The result of these activities is a thorough knowledge about the 'State of the Art' of the analysis of waste materials in the Netherlands.