Treatment and Disposal of Poultry Processing Wastewater in Sri Lanka

Abstract

—Discharge of untreated poultry processing wastewater (PPWW) causes various environmental pollution issues in the re ceiving environment of water, land, and air. Treatment and disposal of PPWW in compliance with disposal norms is one of the main concerns of poultry meat production industries in Sri Lanka. In many countries, PPWW is treated using either Anaerobic Biological Treatments (ANERBTs) incorporated with energy recovery or Aero bic Biological Treatments (AERBTs) and discharged into municipal sewage systems for further treatment. The primary aim of this paper is to estimate organic strength characteristics (OSCs) of untreated PPWW in terms of COD and to provide an overview of the existing treatment technologies, its compatibility, and treated wastewater (TWW) disposal practices since no sound written documents or sci entific studies done in Sri Lanka are reported. In this study, COD of untreated PPWW was used to determine its OSCs and compatibility of treatment techniques of existing treatment facilities. The field sample analysis reported COD of above 1,605mg/l assuring high OSCs of PPWW and evaluation of existing treatment methodologies surprisingly highlighted a very few applications of ANRBTs in the local PPIs, though ample research evidence is available on the application of ANRBTs for the treatment of wastewaters with high OSCs