Waste water pollution of industrial areas can answer for the serious consequences of one of the most important environmental threats to the future. In this study, inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry method (ICP-AES) is proposed to determine heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Cd, Cr, Zn, Al, Fe, Ni, Co, Mn) and major elements (Ca, Mg) in waste water of Kocabas Stream. The concentration of metals in the waste water samples taken from 9 different stations (St.) in Biga-Kocabas Stream in November 2004 (autumn period) were determined after simple pretreatment of samples by the proposed ICP-AES method. An analysis of a given sample is completed in about 15 min for ICP-AES the method. The results of heavy metals concentrations in waste water were found between 0.00001-77.69610 mg l(-1) by the ICP-AES technique. The concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cu, Zn, Cr, Al, Fe, Mn, Ni, Co, Mg and Ca 0.00001 (St.3,6,7) - 0.0087 mg l(-1) (St.9), 0.00001 (St.4-7) - 0.0020 mg l(-1) (St.8), 0.00001 (St.1,3-7,9) - 0.0041 mg l(-1) (St.2), 0.0620 (St.2) - 0.2080 mg l(-1) (St.3), 0.0082 (St.6) - 0.2290 mg l(-1) (St.8), 0.3580 (St.2) - 1.7400 mg l(-1) (St.3), 0.2240 (St.1) - 0.6790 mg l(-1) (St.3), 0.0080 (St.1) - 1.5840 mg l(-1) (St.3), 0.0170 (St.3) - 0.0640 mg l(-1) (St.2), 0.0010 (St.1,4,5,8) - 0.0080 mg l(-1) (St.3), 5.0640 (St.9) - 5.2140 mg l(-1) (St.1) and 43.3600 (St.2) - 77.6961 mg l(-1) (St.9), respectively. Also we measured environmental physicochemical parameters such as temperature, salinity, specific conductivity, total dissolved solid (TDS), pH, oxidation and reduction potential (ORP), and dissolved oxygen (DO) in the waste water at sampling stations.
