Toxicity evaluation of herbal pharmaceutical wastewater to the freshwater crustacean Cypris spp.

Abstract

In India a large number of pharmaceutical industries are manufacturing drugs of complex type subsequently producing huge quantities of wastewaters. The herbal pharmaceutical industries are one of them which manufacture various herbal medicines from natural products and certain chemicals and metal combinations. During their manufacturing process a large number of toxicants enter the watercourse harming the biota of the receiving water bodies. Zooplankton organisms being at the base of the food chain if affected, will subsequently affect the fisheries potential at large, harming the interest of man. Keeping this point in view a herbal pharmaceutical manufacturing industry based at Nagpur was selected for investigation with respect to assessing its toxic effect on the freshwater crustacean Cypris spp. during short duration toxicity tests. This research paper discusses in detail the bioassay evaluation of raw, neutralized and physico-chemically treated herbal pharmaceutical effluent for arriving at a concentration safe for the Cypris spp.