Studies on Industrial Pollution in Nigeria: The effect of Textile effluents on the quality of Groundwater in some parts of Lagos

Abstract

The textile industry is one of the industries in Nigeria that pollute the environment by the indiscriminate discharge of untreated effluents. Until recently little attention was given to groundwater pollution studies in the industrial estates. We report herein, the effect of the effluents discharged from two textile industries on the well waters from around the Estates investigated. The results showed that the effluents had high values of BOD5 (100–390 mg/l), COD (204–2000 mg/l), pH and were highly coloured. These values were higher than the efffluent limits stipulated by the Federal Ministry of Environment for textile industries. The effect of depth and distance of well from the point of effluent discharge on the quality of well water was also investigated and the results showed that of the fifteen tube wells around Company A, the well that was closest to point of discharge (a shallow well) showed the highest BOD5 (107 mg/l) and total dissolved solids (TDS) while all the other wells together with those around Company B showed acceptable results.


KEYWORDS: Textile effluents, groundwater, pollution.


Nig. Jnl Health & Biomed. Sciences Vol.3(1) 2004: 44-50