Toxic Effluent Treatment by Membrane Based Ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis for Sustainable Management and Conservation of Ground Water in Industrial Clusters

Abstract

The present study attempts to assess the nature of effluents generated from textile bleaching and dyeing units located at Kalikapur area under Maheshtala region, West Bengal, India and to provide a sustainable management of ground water resources through installing CETPs with zero liquid discharge system. Effluent from medium, small and tiny units of this region is estimated at 2000 MLD. Studies with 40 units for 4 years (2012—2016) located in this area exhibited following mean values of different physic-chemical variables: pH (9), Biological Oxygen Demand (610 Mg/L), Chemical Oxygen Demand (1827 Mg/L), Total Dissolved Solids (6411 Mg/L), Total Suspend Solids (927 Mg/L) and toxic metals such as lead Pb (0.43 Mg/L), Chromium (0.031 Mg/L), Zinc (0.74 Mg/L), Nickel (0.07 Mg/L) and Cadmium (0.03 Mg/L). These finding of results surpass the standard allowable limits qualify by FAO (1985) and World Health Organization (2003). The waste water loaded with toxic trace metals is adversely affecting the environmental pollution and anthropomorphic eudemonia and also pollute the quality of both surface and ground water and consequently degraded agricultural and plant yield, vegetable and fruits and causes impairment to aquatic lives. Four to five Common Effluent Treatment Plants are urgently required to install at different areas of the Maheshtala cluster with a capacity of 500 MLD each, so that one in Kalikapur area, to manage sizeable volume of waste water (2000 MLD) and sustainable management of ground water resources in a thickly populated urban area near Calcutta, a principal city of India.