Use of Root Zone Technology as Tertiary Treatment for Dairy Industrial Waste Water

A large amount of water is consumed by dairy industry for the processing of dairy products. Hence there is a need to recover and recycle the water from the effluent which was discharged from these industries. One of the natural methods to treat this kind of wastewater is Reed Bed System (or) root zone technique. In this study colocasia esculenta which is locally known as Nanal was used to treat the wastewater. The experiment was conducted with dairy wastewater collected from the effluent treatment plant of dairy industry. From the experimental study it was found that the Root Zone Technique gives a better quality of treated effluent with considerable percentage of reduction in Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD). The other monitoring parameters such as pH, and Total Dissolved solids (TDS), were found well within the permissible limits. In this study it is found that RZTS gives better results when it is used as a tertiary treatment rather than in conventional waste water treatment.