Physicochemical and bacteriological assessment of tannery effluent from Samaru-Zaria was carried out. A total of six (6) tannery effluent samples (from site A- point of
discharge, site B- 20m from point of discharge, site C- 40m from point of discharge, site D-
60m from point of discharge, site E- 80m from point of discharge and site F- 100m from point
of discharge) were collected from the Nigerian Leather and Science Technology, Samaru -
Zaria, Kaduna State in sterile labeled screw capped bottles. Physicochemical and bacteriological
analysis was carried out using standard techniques. The physicochemical analysis revealed the
appearance of the effluent to be dark-brown with unpleasant odour. the effluent further revealed
the presence and at different concentrations of total solids, total suspended solids, total
dissolved solids, total hardness, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, manganese, nitrite,
nitrate, chloride, fluoride, sulphate, phosphate, cadmium, zinc and copper, chemical oxygen
demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), oil and grease all in mg/L except pH.
Bacillus
sp had percentage occurrence of 100%,
Pseudomonas
sp had 83.3%,
Flavobacterium
,
Micrococcus
and
Staphylococcus
sp had 66.7% each,
Proteus
and
Klebsiella
sp had 50.0%
occurrence each,
Streptococcus
had 33.3% while
Escherichia coli
had the least percentage of
occurrence of 16.7 from the samples of the tannery effluent analyzed respectively. The highest
viable count was observed from site F which is 100m away from the point of discharge and had
4.09 x 10
7 cfu/ml and the lowest from site A (point of discharge) with 1.2 x 10
7cfu/ml. The
treatment of tannery effluents before discharge into the environment is necessary using biotreatment.
This will reduce or eliminate environmental pollutions which could be detrimental to
humans, animal s and plants.