Chapter 14

Phytoremediation of

Wastewater Discharged

from Paper and Pulp, Textile

and Dairy Industries using

Water Hyacinth

(Eichhornia crassipes)

A Sustainable Approach

Apurba Koley,¹ Anudeb Ghosh,¹ Sandipan Banerjee,²

Nitu Gupta,³ Richik Ghosh Thakur,¹

Binoy Kumar Show,¹ Shibani Chaudhury,¹

Amit Kumar Hazra,⁴ Andrew B. Ross,⁵

Gaurav Nahar⁶ and Srinivasan Balachandran^1,*

14.1 Introduction

The presence of toxic heavy metals in water bodies like rivers, lakes and reservoirs affect local

inhabitants, animals and other living organisms depending on the water or source (Rai et al. 2002).

The concentration of these metals above the threshold limit or optimal concentration can cause

negative impacts on plant systems due to oxidative stress and inhibited cytoplasmic enzymes

(Assche and Clijsters 1990). Intake of toxic metals causes serious health and growth-related issues

1 Bioenergy Laboratory, Department of Environmental Studies, Siksha-Bhavana, Visva-Bharati.

2 Mycology and Plant Pathology Laboratory, Department of Botany, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan-731235, India.

3 Department of Environmental Science, Tezpur University, Napaam, Tezpur, Assam - 784208, India.

4 Socio-Energy Lab, Department of Lifelong Learning and Extension, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.

5 School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom.

6 Defiant Renewables Pvt Ltd, 1st Floor Kant Helix, Bhoir Colony, Chinchwad, Pune-411033, India.

* Corresponding author: s.balachandran@visva-bharati.ac.in

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-4247-408X