Assessment of Physicochemical Characteristics of Effluents from Paper Mill in the State of Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Discharge of large amount of wastewater as effluent from pulp and paper industries in the surrounding streams result in serious health and environmental problems. These large quantities of effluents need to be characterized for evolving proper treatment strategy prior to their disposal. Physicochemical characteristics of effluents from an agro-based paper mills located in Uttar Pradesh state of India were analyzed in terms of pH, colour, TS, TDS, TSS, turbidity, BOD, COD, and AOX. The effluent samples collected from different processing unis of the paper mill varied considerably across the discharge streams. The mean values pH, colour, TS, TDS, TSS, turbidity, BOD, COD, and AOX ranged from 1.82±0.03 to 9.84±0.06, 481.44±0.58 to 3936.16±5.76 PCU, 1718.49±0.65 to 4252.29±4.46 ppm, 1518.27±2.65 to 3032.14±3.32 ppm, 200.22±2.01 to 1220.15±3.15 ppm, 113.23±1.46 to 481.22±2.61 NTU, 355.65±3.50 to 1342.22±3.50 ppm, 881.52±3.19 to 2710.12±4.52 ppm, and 15.75±0.51 to 38.35±0.21 ppm respectively. The results demonstrated markedly higher values of all physicochemical parameters of effluents from various processing units of the paper mill than the permissible limit thus necessitating appropriate treatment prior to their discharge in the environment.