Comparative Assessment of Pollution Status of Liquid Wastewater from Hair Dressing Saloon and Local Pharmaceutical Shops in Aduhanhan Community, Edo State (Published)
The pollution status of the pharmaceutical and salon wastewater within Aduhanhan Community, Edo State was comparatively evaluated. The wastewaters were collected from different pharmaceutical and salon shops which were then subjected to different standards laboratory procedures to evaluate the various quality parameters. Pharmaceutical wastewater average temperature was 30.05°C, pH 5.74, conductivity 183.69 mg/L, turbidity at 18.56 mg/L while salon wastewater recorded a lower temperature of 29.25°C, pH 5.50, conductivity 328.99 mg/L. The pharmaceutical TDS was 3848 mg/L, while salon had lower value of 1094 mg/L. Pharmaceutical wastewater recorded TSS value of 10.65 mg/L while 3.92 mg/L was observed for salon wastewater. The level of metal concentrations in the pharmaceutical wastewater was Fe (0.471 mg/L), Cd (0.13 mg/L), Pb (0.75 mg/L) against Fe (0.692 mg/L), Cd (0.087 mg/L) and Pb (0.518 mg/L). Salon wastewater contained higher amount of Mg and Ca than the pharmaceutical wastewater. Salon had COD value of 55.82 mg/L with BOD of 26.99 mg/L while pharmaceutical wastewater contained COD of 59.65 mg/L with BOD value of 25.54 mg/L. The nitrates, phosphates, and chlorides values in both the pharmaceutical and salon wastewater were below their respective threshold limits. Total bacterial count for pharmaceutical was 136,900 FU/mL while salon recoded 99,300 FU/mL, indicative of higher biological contamination in pharmaceutical wastewater. A strong positive correlation was found between temperature and total dissolved solids (TDS) (0.87), while conductivity and temperature had an almost perfect positive correlation (0.977). Conversely, a moderate negative correlation between pH and temperature (-0.45) suggested that as temperature rises, pH tends to decrease. Heavy metals like cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) showed a strong positive correlation (0.978), indicating they may originate from the same industrial sources. The analysis also revealed low correlations among some parameters, such as nitrates and phosphates (-0.15), suggesting they do not vary together significantly. In conclusion results indicated that pharmaceutical wastewater was more polluted both in terms of physicochemical parameters and microbial content compared to hair dressing salon wastewater. Both wastewater sources exceed permissible limits for certain parameters (Lead, Cadmium, TSS, COD, BOD), suggesting a need for treatment before discharge.
Keywords: Correlation, Parameter, pharmaceutical waste, salon, turbidity, wastewater