Characterization and Antibiotic Susceptibility Pattern of Bacteria Isolated from Waste Dumping Site in Ujjain City, India

Abstract

Municipal solid waste management is an important problem faced by all the developing cities. In most of the cities, municipal solid waste collected from different areas of the city is dumped into the dumping grounds where it is incinerated, used for landfill or left on the ground for self-degradation. In this study soil samples were collected from waste dumping site in Ujjain and 63 bacterial cultures were isolated and identified using serial dilution method. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern of cultures was determined using Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion antibiotic susceptibility test. The results show that Pseudomonas is the most important bacterial genus present here followed by Bacillus and Enterobacter. It was also seen that about 52 % of bacteria isolated from this site were antibiotic resistant and about 33 % of cultures were resistant to more than one antibiotic. This represents a potential risk to public health; hence, efforts should be made to speed up the process of waste degradation in dumping grounds.