Cytotoxicity of Crude and Treated Liquid Effluents from Textile Industry Dyeing Using Bioindicator Allium cepa L.

Abstract

The contamination of water resources is one of modern society’s crucial problems. In fact, industries that discard their wastes in rivers and lakes are major polluting agents. The textile industry is a classic example since the disposal of its liquid effluents is highly colorful, due to incomplete fixing of dye to the textile fiber. Among the different biomarkers that can be used to monitor the aquatic environment, the plants have proven to be effective, especially cytotoxicity and cellular and chromosomal aberration test using Allium cepa L. Current experiments conducted on root meristematic cells of A. cepa were exposed to samples of crude and treated liquid effluents from the textile dyeing industry which caused a statistically significant inhibition of mitotic index, by chi-square test. Experiment showed that only treatment with water from the Cleopatra stream, located in Maringa-Parana-Brazil, in which waste of textile industry has been disposed, was not cytotoxic. Results show that treatments applied to textile effluents are inefficient with regard to non-degradation or to retention of substances with cytotoxic or mutagenic potential, although the physicochemical analysis of effluents shows significant decrease of the values of chemical demand and biochemical oxygen, nitrates, and nitrites after these treatments. Thus, it is important that preventive measures are to be taken in the textile in order to ensure the elimination of most of the controlled substances toxic effluents generated by these, minimizing the environmental effects of this industry.