Treatment of Industrial Wastewater in a Floating Treatment Wetland: A Case Study of Sialkot Tannery

Adeel Younas, Love Kumar (), Matthew J. Deitch, Sundus Saeed Qureshi, Jawad Shafiq, Sohail Ali Naqvi, Avinash Kumar, Arjmand Qayyum Amjad and Sabzoi Nizamuddin
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Adeel Younas: Freshwater Programme, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), WWF-Pakistan Office, Lahore 54600, Punjab, Pakistan
Love Kumar: Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences Department, IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603, USA
Matthew J. Deitch: Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences Department, IFAS West Florida Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603, USA
Sundus Saeed Qureshi: Institute of Environmental Engineering and Management, Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro 76062, Sindh, Pakistan
Jawad Shafiq: Department of Local Government & Community Development, Lahore 54000, Punjab, Pakistan
Sohail Ali Naqvi: Freshwater Programme, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), WWF-Pakistan Office, Lahore 54600, Punjab, Pakistan
Avinash Kumar: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA
Arjmand Qayyum Amjad: Freshwater Programme, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-Pakistan), WWF-Pakistan Office, Lahore 54600, Punjab, Pakistan
Sabzoi Nizamuddin: School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne 3000, Australia

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: The city of Sialkot in Pakistan is a hub of leather tanneries, with approximately 260 tanneries in operation and, while producing millions of leather products per day, the city discharges millions of gallons of untreated effluent into drains each day. In order to devise a cost-effective system for the treatment of tannery wastewater, a floating treatment wetland (FTW) was established to treat the effluent using local plant species through phytoremediation. The efficiency of the FTW was tested with three different plant species, each grown separately and operating for three months in the FTW tank. Two of the plant species introduced, water hyacinth and water lettuce, were floating and vascular; the third plant species Typha latifolia was vegetated on a floating mat of styrofoam while the roots extended down to the contaminated water. Wastewater from a tannery drain was pumped into the FTW tank with a flow of 0.5 L per minute and was given a retention time of six days. The influent and effluent from the FTW were periodically tested to determine the percentage removal of contaminants, primarily the total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, and chromium. After two months with each species, a significant change in the quality of wastewater was measured: chromium was removed by up to 95 percent by the water hyacinth and water lettuce and 33 percent by the Typha latifolia. The pilot model indicates that FTWs are an effective system to treat effluent from tanneries in a cost-effective way as an alternative to establishing an expensive treatment system with high associated operational costs. It can help in achieving the circular economy concept of conventional wastewater schemes towards more sustainable ones. Moreover, to achieve the principles of circular economy and environmentally friendly development, it is crucial that the substances used for a wetland foundation have the capacity to be recycled, are available at a cheap price, and are locally available.

Keywords: circular economy; circular bioeconomy; floating treatment wetland; phytoremediation; tannery wastewater; tropical wetlands; Typha latifolia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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