Background: Agricultural chemicals, metals, industrial effluents, plastics, excessive dumping of unused and expired pharmaceutical chemicals etc. contaminate terrestrial, aquatic and aerial environment. The excessive usage of the unwanted chemicals elicits undesirable effects in the non target organism inhabited in the various environments. The soil biota like earthworm faces threats of the environmental contaminants. A number of research works has been carried out to study the impact of certain environmental pollutants on the terrestrial inhabitant like earthworms which are widely utilized in the waste disposal management. Tamarind shell waste is considered one of the unwanted materials dumped in the road side and being discharged from industry and from the houses. The bio waste is now a day’s utilized for various purposes. The environmental contaminants such as diclofenac and bisphenol-A are discharged into the environment and finally reach the terrestrial environment where the inhabitants are adversely affected. Hence the study has been focused to analyze the efficiency of earthworm Eudrilus eugeniae in the conversion of tamarind shell waste mixed separately with Diclofenac and bisphenol-A. Methods: Vermibed was prepared for the present work. The vermibed contains cow dung and garden soil which are common in all the pots. One pot was considered as control. The second pot was mixed with tamarind shell waste. The third pot was mixed with diclofenac and finally in the last pot bisphenol-A was taken. Healthy earworms were selected and released to the four pots. The experimental set up was maintained for 30 days. Correlation matrix and t-test was performed to understand the significance of the results.Result: The study revealed the impact of pollutants on the bioconversion of tamarind shell waste. The contaminants like diclofenac and bisphenol-A significantly decreased the micro and macro nutrient levels. The phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium level showed a decrease when compared to control on 30th day in the diclofenac treatment. The nitrogen value was also decreased in the bisphenol-A treated compost on 30th day and the value was statistically significant. The other nutrients, phosphorous and iron were also decreased significantly (P less than 0.05) in the treatment and correlation matrix showed positive and negative correlation with micro and macro nutrients. The physico-chemical characters such as pH and electrical conductivity are also altered in the experimental conditions.
The efficiency of the earthworm Eudrilus eugeniae was studied in the present work where the earthworm was subjected to the conversion of Orange peel waste mixed with diclofenac into compost in the form of micro and macro minerals on 15 th and 30 th days. Micro and Macro nutrients such as N, P, K and Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu were analyzed in the Orange peel waste and mixed with diclofenac along with control. Similarly physical characteristics were also analyzed to understand the efficiency of earthworm in maintaining the physical status of the soil. The analysis revealed that the P and Fe were increased significantly on 15 th and 30 th days where as the Physical property i.e., EC was increased only in the orange peel waste conversion where as in the diclofenac contaminated waste, the EC was stable in the present study. The pH was slightly increased on 15 th and stable on 30 th day. FTIR Study was undertaken to identity the chemical group present in the control and experiment. Histological changes were compared with that of experiment and the efficiency of the earthworm has been understood in the present work within a short period of 15 th to 30 th days.
In this study, biodegradation efficiacy of three different earthworms (E. eugeniae, E. foetida and P. excavates) on poultry waste was studied. Earthworms were exposed to various concentrations of poultry waste to identify the median lethal concentration, for 72 hrs. Macronutrient and micronutrients analysis of Poultry waste showed varied results in earthworm degrading samples than compared to control. Among the three earthworm species, E. eugeniae showed high efficiency of biodegrading poultry waste into an organic manure. This study identified the efficient earthworm with high biodegrading efficiency which helps to reduce the environmental pollution developed by poultry waste.
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