The Use of Polymeric Materials of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and Polypropylene (PP) as the media of Anaerobic-aerobic bioreactors in treating wastewater from the tofu industry

Abstract

Small-scale businesses often dominate the tofu sector in Makassar City, preventing any prior wastewater management. While tofu is typically produced on a household scale, the wastewater treatment process is limited due to the need for suitable technology and high prices. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct this research to obtain tofu wastewater results that meet environmental discharge standards and develop a straightforward and affordable waste treatment concept. A laboratory scale with an experimental method is used in this study, where the test parameters used were BOD, COD, and TSS using two types of biofilter media, namely mineral water bottle media made of PET plastic and plastic straw media made of PP plastic with variations in observation time of 24 hours for six days. The results presented that the efficiency of the average removal in plastic-media reactors with mineral water bottles reduced BOD by 88.30%, COD by 88.97%, and TSS by 79.13%. The straw-based plastic reactor reduced BOD by 86.74%, COD by 85.41%, and TSS by 67.03%. The effectiveness value obtained shows that biofilter media made from plastic mineral bottles (PET) produces better effectiveness in removing BOD, COD, and TSS than biofilter media made from plastic straws (PP).