Evaluation of textile laundry effluents and their cytotoxic effects on Allium cepa

Abstract

Industrial laundries have water as one of their main inputs and they release effluents in large amounts, with a high polluting load, which are usually discarded into the environment, or they are insufficiently treated for release into the neighboring water bodies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiencies of the biological treatments in an industrial textile laundry and their environmental impact on the surface waters of the stream where the dump is usually made, by using cytotoxicity tests on the meristematic root cells of Allium cepa L. The results have shown, for the most part, that the treated effluents over a period of 24 h showed reductions in their mitotic index. The treatments on the raw effluents showed cytotoxic effects when compared to control, with cell division recoveries after 24 h in the waters. Cytotoxic effects were additionally observed in the stream waters, at a point before the dump, indicating that they received a pollutant load, before the effluent disposal site of the evaluated industrial laundry. Notably, the treatments that were being applied by the industrial laundry were effective throughout the processing, reducing the concentrations of the toxic substances. When considering the data presented, it is now understood that there is a constant need for the evaluation of industrial effluents, as well as for the waters of the streams and the rivers that receive these disposals, in order to preserve and maintain the quality of the waters, the organisms, and consequently, the ecosystems.

Chromosomal Abnormalities in Allium cepa Induced by Treated Textile Effluents: Spatial and Temporal Variations

“…It has been reported that presence of binucleated cells, sticky chromosomes, chromosome fragments, and anaphase bridges in the Allium cepa root meristems was induced by the textile effluents [9]. Further, Carita and Marine-Morales reported that there is a high possibility of inducing the chromosomal and nuclear aberrations in Allium cepa root meristem cells by textile effluent contaminated with azo dyes and aromatic amines [27,28]. In the present study, a significantly high number of chromosomal abrasions were observed in the Allium cepa root meristematic cells exposed to water collected from the effluent discharge point during both seasons.…”

Effect of land-use pattern on the physicochemical and genotoxic properties of water in a low-order stream in Central Brazil

“…There is a correlation of 82% between the A. cepa test and the carcinogenicity test in rodents, and when compared with the prokaryotic model, A. cepa is more sensitive than the Ames test (Rank and Nielsen, 1994). The A. cepa test has been validated by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) as an excellent genetic model for the detection of genotoxicants and is frequently used in environmental monitoring studies (Leme and Marin-Morales, 2009;Sousa et al, 2017;Düsman et al, 2014;Silva et al, 2018;Bollani et al, 2018).…”