Title: Water pollution by discharge effluents from Gove industrial area of Maharashtra, India: dispersion of heavy metals and their toxic effects

Authors: Pravin U. Singare, Asmita G. Jagtap, Ram S. Lokhande

Addresses: Department of Chemistry, Bhavan's College, Munshi Nagar, Andheri (West), Mumbai 400058, India. ' Department of Chemistry, Vani Junior College, Mulund, Mumbai 400081, India. ' Department of Chemistry, University of Mumbai, Santacruz, Vidyanagari, Mumbai 400098, India

Abstract: This paper advocates water pollution study with special reference to the toxic heavy metal content in waste water effluent released from Gove Industrial area of Bhiwandi City located in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Most of the heavy metals like Fe, Cu, Cr, Cd and Ni were found to be much higher than the maximum permissible limits. These heavy metals have created threat to the aquatic life and through biomagnification may enter the food chain thereby affecting the human beings as well. The authors point out that as India moves towards stricter regulation of industrial effluents to control water pollution, greater efforts are required to reduce the risk to public health as toxic pollutants which are mainly colourless and odourless are released into the ecosystems.

Keywords: environmental pollution; industrial effluent; heavy metals; biomagnification; flame atomic absorption spectrophotometry; toxicity; water pollution; India; wastewater effluent.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2011.040249

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2011 Vol.11 No.1, pp.28 - 36

Published online: 23 Oct 2014 *

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