Assessment of Effluent Characteristics and Wastewater Management Practices in Selected Hospitals of Addis Ababa Ethiopia
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Date
2021-09-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Pollutants from hospital wastewaters are becoming serious issue in both developing countries of the world. There is a need to evaluate the quality of wastewater discharged from hospitals with regulatory standards. In response, this study investigates the wastewater generation, characteristics and sewage management practices in seventeen selected hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Descriptive study was employed to understand the status of wastewater management practices. Wastewater sampled weekly from August 10/2020 to August 24/2020. Two public hospitals were used to analysis of heavy metals, bacteriological and other physico-chemical wastewater parameters were analyzed using standard methods and the results were compared with effluent permissible limit standard of the City (AACGEPGD). pH, Conductivity, Turbidity and Total coliform levels were in the range of 6.8-7, 1058-1390 μS/cm, 60-152 NTU and >2400 MPN, respectively. The range of other parameters include total suspended solids; 100-550 mg/L, total solids; 692-1528 mg/L, total dissolved solids; 410-1428 mg/L, chemical oxygen demand; 93-443 mg/L, biological oxygen demand; 29-118 mg/L, total organic carbon; 2-9 mg/L, total nitrogen; 1-18 mg/L, total phosphate; 13-40 mg/L and sulfate; 16-48 mg/L, mercury; 0.003-0.21 mg/L, manganese; 0.05-0.93 mg/L, zinc; 0.02-0.85 mg/L and iron; 0.7-4.89 mg/L, were investigated. The results indicated that the effluent quality of the presented hospitals for most wastewater parameters such as; EC, TSS, TDS, BOD5, COD, TP, TN and Total coliforms were above the standard permissible limit of the city (AACGEPGD). Therefore, the surveyed hospitals must need to adopt preferable wastewater treatment plant up to the existing standards.
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Keywords
Hospital Waste Water, Wards Effluent, Wastewater Management