Constructed wetland for slaughterhouse wastewater treatment

K Keerthana,R Thivyatharsan

doi:10.4038/agrieast.v12i1.47

Abstract

Water quality has become a burning issue as best quality water is needed for daily lives. The slaughterhouses functioning at Batticaloa district generate huge amount of effluent and discharge to surrounding environment without proper treatment. It pollutes the surface water and soil as well. Discharging slaughterhouse wastewater without treatment contributes to greatly degrading the aquatic environment as well as human health issues. Therefore, there is a need to treat slaughterhouse wastewater before discharging into the water bodies and soil to avoid environmental pollution and human health effects. The objectives of the study were to design, construct and evaluate the efficiency of constructed wetland for the treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater with special reference to the parameters of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total dissolved solid (TDS), total suspended solid (TSS), nitrate, phosphate, biological oxygen demand (BOD) and pH as well as to analyze the characteristics of slaughterhouse wastewater. The wetland was constructed with the layers of coir fiber, gravel and sand with the dimension of 1m x 1m x 0.3m. Cattail (Typha latifolia) plant was used as macrophytes. The results revealed that the removal of the above mentioned parameters increased with increasing retention time of wastewater in constructed wetland. The maximum removal efficiency of constructed wetland for the parameters of phosphate, COD, BOD5, nitrate, TDS and TSS nitrate and phosphate were 85.8%, 77.5%, 93.3%, 68%, 71.3% and 88.7% respectively. It was concluded that the constructed wetland performed well for the treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater for the parameters of COD, TSS, TDS, BOD5, nitrate and phosphate.

Highlights

Water is used for domestic, agriculture and industrial purposes
The results of the study revealed that the constructed wetland had an ability to treat slaughterhouse wastewater
The initial mean values of slaughterhouse wastewater during the study period were obtained as chemical oxygen demand (COD) of 1193.0±35.5mg/l, total suspended solid (TSS) of 649.3±6.0 mg/l, total dissolved solid (TDS) of 296.7±25.2 mg/l, BOD5 of 551.7±12.6 mg/l, nitrate of 32.3±2.5 mg/l, pH of 8.7±0.3 and phosphate of 16.8±1.6 mg/l

Summary

Introduction

Water is used for domestic, agriculture and industrial purposes. The slaughterhouse uses water for washing and cleaning operations of the meat, pipes, machines and floors. Generates large quantity of water as wastewater with higher organic loading (Seif and Moursy, 2001). The treatment of water and wastewater has become crucial due to the continuous growth of world population and the pollution of freshwater because of not adequately treated wastewater discharged into environment, especially in developing countries (Bustillo-Lecompte and Mehrvar, 2015). Diverse techniques are adopted for water and wastewater treatment depending on the differences in geographic location, financial resources, living standards and life quality in different countries, as well as the characteristics of the wastewater effluents and pollutants (Daigger, 2009)

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion