Effects of Chrysotile Asbestos Contaminated Soil on Crop Plants

Abstract

Chrysotile asbestos was monitored in the soil samples collected from different locations around an asbestos cement factory, viz. close to it as well as 1, 2, and 5 km away from the factory represented as D0, D1, D2, and D5, respectively. Asbestos fibers were relatively dense in samples collected from locations close to the factory compared to those from distant locations. However, soil properties like organic carbon, available nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, electrical conductivity, and pH of the samples collected from different locations were similar. For assessing the effects of chrysotile contaminated soil on crop plants, cemented pots were used with the aforesaid soil samples, in which the control contained soil collected from a location 10 km away from the factory. The plant materials used in this experiment were seeds of food crops commonly grown in the surrounding agro-ecosystem, viz. wheat, pea, and mustard. Seed germination percentage significantly declined with graded exposure to chrysotile asbestos fibers. Toxicity of the latter was equally noticeable on height of the shoot, length of the root, biomass, chlorophyll, and protein content of exposed plants. The study reports adverse effects of chrysotile asbestos on flora growing near the asbestos cement factory.