During the past decade there has been a great emphasis on using multielemental methods to determine heavy metals in solid waste products arising from various industrial, combustion, municipal and mining activities. Furthermore, the study of the leaching characteristics of these solid wastes is of prime importance for environmental and regulatory considerations. We present an overview of neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) for the analysis of solid wastes and leachates. In particular we discuss several matrix problems that are usually not considered in routine NAA measurements.