Physicochemical assessment of industrial textile effluents of Punjab (India)

Urbanization and industrialization are generating huge quantities of untreated wastewater leading to increased water pollution and human diseases in India. The textile industry is one of the leading polluters of surface water and consumes about 200–270 tons of water to produce 1 ton of textile product. The primary objective of the present study was to investigate the pollution potential of textile industry effluent draining into Buddha Nallah stream located in Ludhiana, Punjab (India), and determine the seasonal variation in physicochemical parameters (pH, water temperature, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of Buddha Nallah water. During summer months, for Site 1 and Site 2, the value of pH was in the alkaline range of 8.78 ± 0.47 and 8.51 ± 0.41, respectively. The values of pH in the rainy season were found to be in the range of 7.38 ± 0.58 and 7.11 ± 0.59 for Site 1 and Site 2, respectively. In the autumn and winter seasons, the average pH values were found to be in the range of 8.58 ± 1.40 and 8.33 ± 0.970, respectively. The maximum mean temperature in summer was recorded as 41.16 ± 4.99 °C, and lowest mean temperature in winter was recorded as 39.25 ± 2.25 °C at Site 2. The suspended solids were found to be highest (143.5 ± 75.01 and 139.66 ± 71.87 mg/L) in autumn for both the sites and lowest (86.50 + 15.10 mg/L) in the rainy season for Site 1. The values of BOD and COD of the textile effluent of both sites during all the seasons ranged from 121–580 to 240–990 mg/L, respectively, much higher than WHO water quality standard of 30 mg/L for BOD and 250 mg/L for COD. The present study deals with the collection of textile industry effluent and its characterization to find out the physicochemical load being drained by the effluent generated from textile industries, on the natural wastewater streams.