Pollution effect of wastewater discharged from wet coffee Processing industry on borche river, sigmo woreda southwest ethiopia

Abstract

In Ethiopia, most of the coffee Industry is producing large amounts of wastewater with high pollutant concentrations and discharges directly into the water bodies untreated or somewhat treated. Environmental pollution such as air, land, water, etc. For improper waste management is an upsetting challenges for developing countries. Several reports indicate that Coffee production is only environmentally friendly when water is used efficiently and polluted water released from the process is treated accordingly. Coffee wastewaters are high in organic loadings and exhibit a high acidity. Pollution effect of wet coffee processing was assessed based onsite measurements and laboratory analyses. The study design and period is cross-sectional study was conducted. This study was conducted from November to the end of December 2021. Sixteen samples were taken from the Coffee industry and Borche River. The macro-invertebrate samples were collected by kick sampling technique using a standard hand net. Shannon and Simpson diversity indices were examined at 6 sampling stations. In this study, the significant reductions in water quality downstream from the coffee industry during the wet season. Wastewater from coffee processing has a pH of 8.16 to 2.56, a high concentration of COD (upstream 160 mg/l and downstream 1060mg/L and at the entry point 20,800mg/l), BOD 5 (upstream 12.15mg/l and downstream 412.8mg/L), total dissolved solid (upstream 40mg/l and downstream 2105mg/l), electrical conductivity (upstream 71.1mg/l and downstream 372.8mg/L) reported that, BOD from (472–551mg/L), COD (9270–14,800 mg/L) and pH 4.40 – 4.27 which indicate that high potential pollution of the coffee effluent when discharged to nearby water bodies. A total of 1264 macro-invertebrates belonging to 27 families and 11 orders were collected. The benthos assemblage of this community in the river was 1264 from this 474 at downstream 1, downstream 2, downstream 3 and 790 are from upstream1, 2 and 3 respectively. The value of the Simpson diversity index varies from 0.6 to 0.86. In the same manner, the value of the Shannon diversity index also varied from 1.4 to 2.37. Most of the physicochemical parameters of the raw wastewater were beyond the EEPA and WHO guideline discharge limits. The quality of Borche river water downstream was at a risky compared to upstream. And it needs serious treatment before discharging into the environment