No abstract

The food processing industry, treating and reusing wastewater, results in dairy effluent with high organic matter contents and BOD levels. Before disposal of effluent, it is necessary to treat effluent as used for land irrigation purposes. Conventional treatment has a high cost of operation and maintenance, requirements, disposal problem of sludge, etc. The phytoremediation approach of dairy wastewater provides an eco-friendly and low-cost treatment. This study treats aquatic macrophytes, water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), and water lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes) with dairy effluent. The result showed an excellent removal efficiency with total solids, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, total alkalinity, chloride, total hardness, COD, and BOD5 as 64%, 66%, 61%, 57%, 76%, 72%, 76%, 71% respectively by treating with Eichhornia. The removal of contaminants by using plants may be due to the root system's toxic contents. Out of these two plant systems, water lettuce-based treatment removed more pollutants than water hyacinth-based dairy wastewater treatment